The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

With Syrian government detentions and rebel blockades, Aleppo residents caught in the middle

Civilians trying to flee the shrinking rebel-held enclave in eastern Aleppo face a dual threat, says the UN: young men are at risk of disappearing once they reach the government-controled side, while rebels are preventing others from exiting the territory.

“We have received very worrying allegations that hundreds of men have gone missing after crossing into government-controlled areas,” Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN’s human rights office in Geneva, said on Friday.

He also charged that civilians were being blocked from fleeing the rebel-held zones by armed groups, including al-Qaeda’s wing in Syria, adding that the people of Aleppo were trapped in a conflict where both sides are committing war crimes.

At least 40,000 displaced people have moved to government-held west Aleppo in recent weeks, according to UN estimates, though others give figures twice that. Some 500 medical patients are still in need of urgent evacuations from the dwindling eastern enclave, the UN said.

Heavy shelling has continued unabated on the enclave, according to residents inside rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Less than 10 per cent of the original enclave remains in the hands of the opposition, as the government’s forces and its allied militias quickly advance.

Russia had said late on Thursday that the Syrian government had stopped the shelling and airstrikes, but civilians and a spokesman for armed factions refuted this. Audio recordings sent by activists inside the besieged area also indicated a sustained attack.

“All night, until this minute, the shelling has not stopped,” said a Kalasa district man who gave his name as Abu Omar. Doctors in the area have pleaded for the Russian and Syrian government forces to end their assault.

“I never said that military activities have been stopped completely. I just said that they were halted yesterday for a specific period of time in order to provide civilians with an opportunity to leave,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov clarified.

“After these humanitarian pauses, military operations will go on until eastern Aleppo is liberated from militants,” Lavrov said, in comments carried by state news agency TASS.

The Red Cross managed this week to help more than 100 people get out of Aleppo’s Old City, an area which has mostly come under government control. The aid agency reported horrific scenes of frightened orphans with nowhere to go, living among wreckage and corpses.

“Many of them cannot move and need special attention and care. It must have been terrifying for them,” said Marianne Gasser, a Red Cross official in Aleppo.

Meanwhile, the UN says the tens of thousands who have managed to safely make it to the government side and are not at risk of arrest are facing shortages of humanitarian aid.

“Our biggest concern is how to shelter all these people,” said Linda Tom of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Damascus, the main coordinating body for relief efforts.

They join more than 400,000 displaced people already in west Aleppo, where resources are stretched.

The UN said it was providing two hot meals a day to the new arrivals, who are mostly women and children.

People who are still in the opposition-held district say they fear retribution by the government, which has a long history of human rights abuses, including against detainees and those accused of supporting the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.

Families expressed worry that young men could be taken for conscription to the military. This would mean joining the army that has been bombing the areas where they resided. Supporters of the opposition are refusing to do this.

People who remain in the enclave are struggling to find shelter from the cold, food and drinking water is scarce and medical aid is extremely limited, residents say.

Syrian government forces and its allies have killed around 400 civilians in Aleppo since November 15. Rebel shelling has left more than 100 civilians dead during the same time.