World

Thousands flee eastern Aleppo as Syrian forces advance

People fleeing rebel-held eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo into the Sheikh Maqsoud area that is controlled by Kurdish fighters. Picture by The Rumaf/Associated Press
People fleeing rebel-held eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo into the Sheikh Maqsoud area that is controlled by Kurdish fighters. Picture by The Rumaf/Associated Press People fleeing rebel-held eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo into the Sheikh Maqsoud area that is controlled by Kurdish fighters. Picture by The Rumaf/Associated Press

THOUSANDS of residents have been fleeing eastern Aleppo after simultaneous advances inside the divided city by Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces.

Rebel defences collapsed as government forces pushed into the city's Sakhour neighborhood on Sunday, coming within one kilometre (0.6 miles) of commanding a corridor in eastern Aleppo for the first time since rebels swept into the city in 2012, according to Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Kurdish-led forces operating autonomously of the rebels and the government meanwhile seized the Bustan al-Basha neighbourhood, allowing thousands of civilians to flee the decimated district to the predominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud, in the city's north, according to Ahmad Hiso Araj, an official with the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The government's push, backed by thousands of Shiite militia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, and under the occasional cover of the Russian air force, has laid waste to Aleppo's eastern neighbourhoods.

An estimated quarter of a million people are trapped in wretched conditions in the city's rebel-held eastern districts since the government sealed its siege of the enclave in late August.

Food supplies are running perilously low, the UN warned on Thursday, and a relentless air assault by government forces has damaged or destroyed every hospital in the area.

Residents in east Aleppo said in distressed messages on social media that thousands of people were fleeing to the city's government-controlled western neighbourhoods, away from the government's merciless assault, or deeper into opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

"The situation in besieged Aleppo [is] very, very bad, thousands of eastern residents are moving to the western side of the city," Khaled Khatib, a photographer for the Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets, said.

"Aleppo is going to die," he posted on Twitter.

The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the conflict through a network of local contacts, said around 1,700 civilians had escaped to government-controlled areas and another 2,500 to Kurdish authorities.

More than 250 civilians have been killed in the government's bombardment of eastern Aleppo over past 13 days, according to the Observatory.

Locals reported thousands more were moving within the eastern neighbourhoods, away from the front lines, but staying inside areas of opposition control.

"The conditions are terrifying" Modar Sakho (28), a nurse in eastern Aleppo, said.

Wissam Zarqa, an English teacher in eastern Aleppo and outspoken government opponent, said some families would stay put in the face of advancing government forces.

Syrian state media reported government forces had seized the Jabal Badro neighborhood and entered Sakhour on Sunday after it took control of the Masaken Hanano neighbourhood on Saturday.

Syrian state TV broadcast a video showing a teary reunion between a soldier and his family after nearly five years apart, according to the report. It said the family had been trapped in Masaken Hanano.

The Lebanese Al-Manar TV channel reported from the neighbourhood on Sunday morning, showing workers and soldiers clearing debris against a backdrop of bombed-out buildings on both sides of a wide thoroughfare. Al-Manar is operated by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group aligned with the Syrian government.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces' advance into Bustan al-Basha dealt the opposition a further blow.

Rebels and opposition figures have long accused the SDF and its predecessor groups of conspiring with the government to quash a nationwide revolt.

Aleppo used to be Syria's largest city and commerce capital before its neighbourhoods were devastated by the country's more than five-year-long civil war.

The UN's child agency warned on Sunday that nearly 500,000 children were now living under siege in Syria, cut off from food and medical aid, mostly in areas under government control. That figure has doubled in less than a year.

Many are now spending their days underground, as hospitals, schools and homes remain vulnerable to aerial bombardment.

"Children are being killed and injured, too afraid to go to school or even play, surviving with little food and hardly any medicine," Unicef executive director Anthony Lake said.

"This is no way to live - and too many are dying."

The Russian Defence Ministry later said that Syrian government troops had taken control over nearly half of the city.

The ministry said that government forces are in control of 12 neighbourhoods, or roughly 40 per cent of the city.