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Deal Is Reached for Rebels to Leave Last Pockets of Aleppo
‘A Complete Meltdown of Humanity’: Aleppo Civilians Gunned Down as They Flee
(about 1 hour later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Representatives of Russia, Turkey and Syrian rebel groups reached an agreement on Tuesday for the rebels to leave the last few pockets of the besieged city of Aleppo that they control.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fighting in the besieged eastern districts of Aleppo stopped on Tuesday, a Russian official said, just hours after the United Nations said it had received credible reports that forces loyal to the Syrian government were gunning down civilians trying to flee and killing residents in their homes.
The agreement came as pro-government forces appeared poised to retake control of the whole city of Aleppo after subjecting the rebel-held eastern half to years of bombardment and months of siege, capped by a two-week offensive that has driven rebels from all but a sliver of their former territory. The forces killed at least 82 civilians on Monday, according to United Nations officials, one of whom called the bloodshed “a complete meltdown of humanity.”
Just before the Russian announcement, a cease-fire agreement appeared to have been reached among Syrian rebels, Russia and Turkey, potentially opening a corridor for residents to safely leave besieged neighborhoods, but the parameters of the deal remained unclear. The journey from eastern Aleppo has been perilous for civilians, some of them older people in wheelchairs who were too frail to leave before as the fighting intensified.
Officials said the evacuations might begin as early as Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning.
The United Nations estimated the recent civilian death toll for eastern Aleppo at 82. The deaths were recorded in four neighborhoods — Bustan al-Qasr, Al Fardous, Al Kallaseh and Al Saleheen — and included at least 11 women and 13 children, some of them shot in the streets as they tried to escape, according to Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Mr. Colville cited reports that the agency had received from reliable contacts inside and outside the city.
But there was immediate confusion over the details. Rebels, activists and aid workers in eastern Aleppo said they had been informed that civilians and fighters could all leave under the deal to rebel-held areas, satisfying a central demand that both civilians and fighters have an option to avoid going to government-held areas, where they fear arrest and other reprisals.
“Civilians have paid a brutal price during this conflict, and we are filled with the deepest foreboding for those who remain in this last hellish corner of opposition-held eastern Aleppo,” Mr. Colville said. He added that there were reports of pro-government forces entering homes and indiscriminately killing women and children.
But Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian envoy to the United Nations, said the evacuation was only for fighters. He said that because the Syrian government would then be in control, there was no need for civilians to leave.
At the United Nations on Tuesday afternoon, Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador, said fighters were being allowed to leave rebel-held areas with their families. “Military action has stopped,” he said, “This very difficult chapter related to eastern Aleppo has ended.”
“Nobody is going to harm the civilians,” he said.
About 37,000 people had fled eastern Aleppo to western areas of the city or to the countryside, said Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations office coordinating emergency relief. An estimated 14,700 of them took refuge in collective shelters. He called the events “a complete meltdown of humanity.”
But to the civilians who have so far chosen not to go to government-held areas, it is precisely the government they fear. Many have been treated as terrorists, and threatened with prison and torture, for protesting against the government, providing medical care to fighters and other activists, and speaking to foreign journalists.
“We have hundreds of civilians stuck in a small square meter, a few small neighborhoods; I don’t know when the regime will arrive,” said a dentist, identified as Dr. Salem, who had fled the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood to one of the city’s last rebel-held districts. “We are stuck,” he added.
For their part, Syrian military officials told Reuters they had no information about a deal.
By Monday evening, government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had control over most of the city, including the historic citadel. Opposition groups were thought to control just one-third of a square mile of the city, Mr. Colville said, citing “deeply disturbing reports” of streets filled with bodies that could not be retrieved by residents because of the intensity of the fighting and fear of being shot on sight.
Aid officials said some details were still being worked out.
Pro-government television channels showed images of Bustan al-Qasr eerily empty; its residents appeared to have fled, some going to government-controlled areas and others to the shrinking zones still held by rebels.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, warned that the blood bath in Aleppo, a once-thriving northern metropolis, could spread to other cities where rebels are active.
“I saw fear — I saw children crying and a women yelling, when a shell fell close to them,” said Malek, an activist who stayed in eastern Aleppo after sending his wife and young child to the countryside. He asked to be identified only by his first name for fear that he would soon find himself in government territory. “I just want to see my wife and my baby, this is the only thing that makes me hopeful,” he said.
“What is happening with Aleppo could repeat itself in Douma, in Raqqa, in Idlib,” he said on Tuesday. “We cannot let this continue.”
Officials said that evacuations might begin as early as Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning under the cease-fire agreement. But there was immediate confusion about the details. Rebels, activists and aid workers in eastern Aleppo said they had been informed that civilians and fighters could all leave to rebel-held areas of the country, avoiding government districts, where they fear arrest and other reprisals.
Also on Tuesday, the French government said it was “deeply concerned” about reports of a chemical attack in the eastern suburbs of the city of Hama a day earlier. The Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, an international coalition of humanitarian groups, said the attack had killed at least 93 civilians and wounded 300, but those numbers could not be confirmed independently.
The death toll for eastern Aleppo, recorded in four neighborhoods — Bustan al-Qasr, Al Fardous, Al Kallaseh and Al Saleheen — included 11 women and 13 children, some shot in the streets as they tried to flee the fighting, said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the United Nations high commissioner for human rights. He cited reports the world body had received from reliable contacts inside and outside the city.
Mr. Colville said pro-government forces had also reportedly entered homes and killed those they found inside, including women and children.
They also shot and killed civilians on Monday in Al Ahrar Square in Al Kallaseh, and in Bustan al-Qasr, he said, adding that an Iraqi militia group had been among the forces involved.
By early Monday evening, opposition groups were estimated to control just a third of a square mile of the city, Mr. Colville said, citing “deeply disturbing reports” of streets filled with bodies that could not be retrieved by residents because of the intensity of the fighting and of the fear of being shot on sight.
Mr. Churkin said that Russia had not observed any humanitarian violations in the recaptured areas, where pro-government militias from Iraq as well as Syria have been active along with forces loyal to Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
Pro-government television channels showed video of Bustan al-Qasr eerily empty; its residents appeared to have fled, some going to government-controlled areas and others to the shrinking zones still held by rebels.
“Civilians have paid a brutal price during this conflict, and we are filled with the deepest foreboding for those who remain in this last hellish corner of opposition-held eastern Aleppo,” Mr. Colville said.
Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations office coordinating emergency relief, reported that about 37,000 people had fled eastern Aleppo to western areas of the city or to the surrounding countryside. An estimated 14,700 of them took refuge in collective shelters, including in a cotton factory, he said. He called the events “a complete meltdown of humanity.”
Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault of France called the assault on Aleppo a “martyrdom.”
In a statement, he described “coldblooded murders of entire families on the ground who were deemed close to the opposition; summary executions, including of women and children; people burned alive in their homes; the continuation of systematic targeting of hospitals, their staff and their patients.”
He added, “Such atrocities have outraged the conscience.”
Thousands of civilians remain in areas previously held by rebel groups, including opposition activists and civil defense members who Mr. Ayrault said now risked detention, torture and death.
Some rebel fighters escaped, while others surrendered to pro-government troops and were escorted out of the city, Mr. Ayrault added. Russian television showed video of such scenes.
The United Nations has heard from families outside the conflict area that they had lost touch with relatives inside the city, Mr. Colville said.
Only monitoring by the United Nations or other external bodies would allay the suspicion that widespread crimes may be underway, Mr. Colville said.
The Aleppo Media Center, an activist group of journalists and citizens, reported mass killings of families in eastern Aleppo, but the reports could not be independently confirmed.
Jan Egeland, the United Nations humanitarian adviser for Syria, said the governments of Russia and Syria were “accountable for any and all atrocities that the victorious militias in Aleppo are now committing.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross issued an urgent call for all combatants to put humanitarian objectives ahead of military ones and to reach an agreement on evacuating civilians. “We stand ready to oversee the implementation of any mutual agreement that puts civilians first,” the group’s Syria director, Marianne Gasser, said in a statement from Aleppo. “We cannot urge this strongly enough: This must happen now.”
