The latest reports from U.N informed us that hundreds of civilians are fleeing out of eastern Aleppo on foot this Friday. While allied forces and Syrian troops are running a campaign to drive away rebels from the crumbling city, civilians are running as far as they could get from the bombing city.
Latest news from Russia came this Thursday when they reported that Syrian troops will suspend combat operations in the city so that civilians can be evacuated from the parts of the city that are still held by rebels.
These parts of the city are held by rebels since 2012. State TV in Syria showed how families were running away from the combat zone in the city. The civilians said that they don’t even care where are they going as long as it is far away from the bombing. There are still medics in eastern Aleppo which provided a list of patients that need to be evacuated from the hospitals inside the sieged city.
United Nations human rights office is concerned about the reports that a lot of men have gone missing in their attempt of leaving Eastern Aleppo. Families of the missing men said that men between the ages of 30 and 50 have disappeared for 7 to 10 days after they fled from the rebel-controlled part of Eastern Aleppo.
The United Nations High Commissioner for human rights believes that some of the civilians that are trying to run away are being stopped by armed groups and in some cases, they are shooting the people that are trying to get away from the city.
The government offensive campaign in the fight against rebels has succeeded in defeating more than three-quarters of the rebel squad, including the most important ones located in ancient Aleppo district. Ten thousand civilians left their homes from Western Aleppo. The biggest concern is now the residents that still remain in the southeast part of the city that is which is held by rebel forces.
Russian Ministry of Defense recently informed that the army now holds 90 percent of Eastern Aleppo and that only a few neighborhoods still remain in rebel hands.
Osama Abu Zayd – adviser for the rebel group also knows as Free Syrian Army proclaimed “More than thirty percent of east Aleppo is controlled by us”. He is stationed in Turkey and he also said that Syrian and Russian army are still battling the rebel groups on the front lines.
In the past 24 hours Russia’s military forces helped more than 8,000 civilians to leave the eastern part of Aleppo controlled by rebel forces.
U.S Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at their meeting in Germany said that they expect diplomats and military experts to meet this Saturday in Geneva. At this meeting, they are supposed to look into details about how the rebels will exit the eastern part of the city along with the civilians that are trying to run away from there.