generalspeaking

Syria's Agonizing Death Knell

"We call for an immediate ceasefire to prevent further suffering and what we fear may end in a bloodbath."
"The front lines and relentless violence continue to move closer to these areas which are packed with displaced people, with bombardments increasingly affecting displacement sites and their vicinity."
Jens Laerke, spokesman, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations

Up to almost a million people altogether have fled the area around Idlib where the Syrian regime has been closing in on Syrian Sunni rebels to retake the area in Bashar al-Assad's determination to reunite greater Syria and return it to his rule. It has been costly. Over the past nine years of conflict much of the country has been pummeled, incessantly bombed and both ancient and modern infrastructure reduced to rubble, millions of Syrian Sunnis displaced internally, and millions more having fled conflict to become refugees have sought haven across the border in Turkey, living in squalid, crowded refugee camps, but for those who have managed to enter Europe.

Syrian state television said army units 'have liberated all the villages and small towns west of Aleppo city' [AFP]

Hundreds of hospitals have been bombed by Syrian and Russian aircraft. The Russian warplanes have given air cover to Syria's military focusing on ground battle. In the last month alone, about a half-million people from Idlib, the last point of gathering before the Turkish border, where Syrian Sunnis have ended up after fleeing earlier capture by the Syrian military of rebel-held areas. Turkey, while actively supporting the rebel factions in Syria, refuses to allow any more Syrian refugees to cross the border to join the already-three-million-strong that have gathered over the years.

Turkey's preoccupation in launching its own border crossing into Syria to clear away its own version of rebel terrorists, has seen to it that the resident Kurdish population of the border area have flown with the Turkish army's advance, clearing the way for Recep Tayyip Erdogan to make good on his plan to re-settle as many of the refugee Syrians in Turkey on the abandoned farmland and in the Kurdish towns as he can make room for. At the same time, the Turkish army is challenging Syria's advance, negotiating with Russia to reach terms all involved can sign onto.

Syrian rebels Idlib, Syria, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020.last rebel stronghold. (AP Photo)

Russia and Turkey would prefer to remain allies, bu the simple reality is that each backs opposite groups; Russia supports the Assad regime which Turkey loathes, and Turkey supports the Syrian Sunni rebels which Syria and Russia regard as 'terrorists'. Turkey's intention against the Kurdish presence in the area is, as always, maliciously confrontational, planning to force them away from their traditional territory, even as they remain backed by the United States who view them as allies in the front against Islamist terrorism.

Most of the civilian population uprooted in the latest offensive in Aleppo and Idlib regions have been women and children, fleeing clashes and chaos for sanctuary north, close to the Turkish border, closed to their entry. According to Russian Defence Minsitry spokespeople, reports of hundreds of thousands of fleeing Syrians from Idlib headed to the Turkish border are entirely false. False too are the reports of Russian air power striking countless hospitals in the region, killing both medical personnel and Syrian civilians.

Internally displaced Syrians from western Aleppo countryside, ride on a vehicle with belongings in Hazano near Idlib, Syria, Feb. 11, 2020.