Feature
Syria
AFFECTED AREAS
Eastern Aleppo
CAUSE OF DISPLACEMENT
Conflict
Figures
About 50,000 displacements as of 15 December; up to 30,000 besieged
Context
About 50,000 people have been displaced from eastern Aleppo to government-controlled areas, Kurdish-controlled areas or in accessible parts of eastern Aleppo where agencies registered them and began assisting them. An additional number of up to 30,000 are besieged in an area controlled by the armed opposition but it is difficult to give precise numbers (UNOG, 15 December 2016; The Guardian, 15 December 2016).
Planned evacuations from eastern Aleppo stalled on 16 December, leaving people stranded along the route without food or shelter. On 18 December, several buses were attacked and torched as they were being sent to transport sick and injured people from several enclaves in Idlib province, southwest of Aleppo. The attacks apparently halted efforts to evacuate besieged areas (BBC, 18 December 2016). The simultaneous evacuations were part of a deal under which civilians from east Aleppo would have been moved to Idlib at the same time as loyalists were shifted from al-Foua and Kefraya, two villages besieged by rebels, into government -held territory (Telegraph, 19 December 2016). However, there were also reports that ten buses had successfully left the villages on 18 December, and that 500 of the 4,000 villagers had left.
In addition, more than 4,500 people, including dozens of orphans, left eastern Aleppo on 18 December in one of the biggest evacuations yet. Bana Alabed, 7, who had tweeted about conditions in the city, was also evacuated (BBC, 19 December 2016; ECHO, 19 December 2016).
There were reports of two incidents of human rights violations committed during the evacuation of eastern Aleppo. The first was a convoy being shot at, which injured five people.
The second was the five-hour detention of a convoy with 750 people. People were forced to lie “on the ground and take off their clothes as they were humiliated and degraded.
Also, the checkpoint looted their money, personal belongings, and papers before shooting some of them which resulted in the killing of three individuals … while two women were abducted” (SNHR, 18 December 2016).
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate end to the violence and unfettered humanitarian access. “We have collectively failed the people of Syria … History will not easily absolve us, but this failure compels us to do even more to offer the people of Aleppo our solidarity at this moment … As front lines have shifted, civilians have fled across dangerous routes, bringing almost no belongings with them. Many families have lost contact with their families inside of eastern Aleppo, after they were displaced or after they burned their SIM cards and devices for fear of facing repercussions on being detained. There have been allegations of young men being rounded up and detained or sent to fight for government forces. Tens of thousands have already been recorded flooding into western Aleppo, but it is likely that many more thousands have been displaced, who are not recorded or registered” (UN, 13 December 2016).
On 19 December, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution expressing alarm at the “continued deterioration of the devastating humanitarian situation in Aleppo and by the fact that urgent humanitarian evacuations and assistance are now needed by a large number of Aleppo inhabitants”, stressing “that these evacuations must be conducted in accordance with international humanitarian law and principles and emphasiz[ing] that the evacuations of civilians must be voluntary and to final destinations of their choice, and protection must be provided to all civilians who choose or who have been forced to be evacuated and those who opt to remain in their homes” (UN, 19 December 2016).
