BEIRUT: Thousands of Syrians were stuck on the Turkish border on Friday after fleeing a major regime offensive backed by Russia near Aleppo where a new humanitarian disaster appeared to be unfolding.
Thousands of civilians are reported to have joined the exodus after fierce fighting by advancing government forces who severed the rebels’ main supply route into Syria’s second city.
Western nations have accused the Syrian government of sabotaging peace talks with its military offensive, and Washington has demanded Moscow halt its campaign in support of President Bashar Al Assad.
The UN Security Council was due to meet later yesterday to discuss the faltering peace process, as Nato head Jens Stoltenberg warned Russian air strikes were “undermining the efforts to find a political solution”.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitor that relies on a network of sources on the ground, estimates that 40,000 people have fled the regime offensive near Aleppo.
“Thousands of people, mainly families with women and children, are waiting to enter Turkey,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Aleppo province is one of the main strongholds of Syria’s armed opposition, which is facing possibly its worst moment since the beginning of the war in 2011.
“The regime is beginning to reap the rewards of the Russian campaign and its advance in Aleppo is all the more important because it suffered setback after setback
in the past two years,” Abdul Rahman said.
The Turkish border crossing of Oncupinar near Kilis, which faces the Syrian frontier post of Bab Al Salama north of Aleppo, was closed yesterday, and there was no sign of any refugee outflow. Top diplomats from countries involved in trying to resolve the conflict are set to meet again on February 11, but tensions between them remain.
Danish law takes effect
Meanwhile, a controversial Danish law allowing police to seize valuables from refugees came into force yesterday, with the government’s guidelines to police exempting wedding and engagement rings from the searches.
A Syrian man comforts a boy amid the rubble of buildings following a reported air strike on the rebel-held neighbourhood of al-Kalasa in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, on February 4, 2016.
Image Credit: AFP
A Syrian man sits inside his handicraft shop in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on February 4, 2016.
Image Credit: AFP
