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Syria Government Forces Say Second East Aleppo District Taken

RFE/RL November 27, 2016

The Syrian army says it has taken control of the second district of eastern Aleppo from rebels in two days.

In a statement on November 27, the army said it had taken full control of Jabal Badro -- a district adjacent to Hanano, which it said it took the previous day.

The state news agency SANA said on November 26 that Syrian forces were in full control of Hanano and were clearing the area of mines and bombs.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that government forces had taken control of Hanano and said they were launching a follow-up assault on two other neighboring districts, Al-Haidariyah and Sakhur.

A spokesman in Syria for the Russian military, which is backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with air strikes and other support, said on November 27 that government forces had "advanced substantially deep into the eastern districts of Aleppo" over the past two days, clearing their opponents out of "more than 2,000 buildings," the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

Yasser al-Yousef of the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel faction said rebels had fought fiercely for more than 48 hours to defend Hanano.

He also warned that if regime forces can advance to Sakhur, then eastern Aleppo will be split in two.

Aleppo has been divided in two since 2012, with the government controlling the west and rebels the east.

Capturing all of the city would be a major victory for Assad after five and a half years of fighting.

On November 15, the government resumed its offensive to retake rebel-held eastern districts, where some 250,000 civilians have been trapped.

The observatory said that at least 18 civilians were killed in government raids and artillery fire in several districts of Aleppo on November 26, and that more than 400 civilians fled rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo for the government-controlled west overnight.

The ground and air assault has killed 219 civilians, including 27 children, since November 15, the observatory said. It said 134 rebel fighters have also died.

The British-based monitor also documented 19 civilian deaths, including 11 children, as a result of rebel shelling of western Aleppo.

On November 26, SANA reported that three people had died and 15 were injured when rebels fired rockets into government-held areas.

Meanwhile, the aid organization Doctors Without Borders said eight out of nine hospitals in eastern Aleppo were no longer functioning, while the ninth could not be contacted.

In a November 27 statement, the UN children's agency said the number of children living under siege has doubled in less than one year to nearly 500,000.

UNICEF said these children were living in 16 besieged areas across the country, "almost completely cut off from sustained humanitarian aid and basic services."

In rebel-held eastern Aleppo alone, UNICEF estimated that 100,000 children are living under siege.

"For millions of human beings in Syria, life has become an endless nightmare – in particular for the hundreds of thousands of children living under siege," UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said in a statement. "Children are being killed and injured, too afraid to go to school or even play, surviving with little food and hardly any medicine."

UNICEF said some communities have received "little to no aid in nearly two years."

Separately, Turkish media cited the country's armed forces as saying that 22 Syrian rebels suffered symptoms of "chemical gas" after a rocket attack by Islamic State (IS) militants.

The reports on November 27 said the attack targeted rebels who are backed by Turkey and have been besieging the IS-controlled northern Syrian town of Al-Bab for several days.

Assad's harsh crackdown on pro-democracy protesters and government opponents in 2011 evolved into a multisided civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced more than 11 million.

With reporting by AFP, Reuters, and dpa

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/syrian-government-forces- capture-aleppo-rebel-district/28141763.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.