Ziad al-Halabi, Baladi News, Aleppo
For the fifteenth day in a row, regime forces and its allied militias continue laying a besiegement on the city of Aleppo after advancing and seizing control over parts of al-Castello road north of the city following fierce battles with the rebels, which is called the lifeline of Aleppo as it's the only exit for the civilians and the only road connecting between the city and its countryside.
The civilians inside the besieged city of Aleppo are being subjected to extremely difficult humanitarian and living conditions due to the lack of the necessities of life from water, electricity and foodstuffs which were absent for 3 months, as the militias at that time were controlling the road under fires before reaching al-Castello and cutting it, in addition to the lack of job opportunities due to the inexistence of any row materials for crafts and industries.
The city also suffers from poor healthy conditions in light of having only one hospital and the inability of referring the serious injures outside the city towards Turkey, in addition to the violent bombardment of regime forces by helicopters and warplanes with barrel bombs, cluster bombs, stereochemistry missiles, and heavy artillery, along with a severe weakness in the potentials of civil defense teams in the city of Aleppo due to targeting their cadres in the city of Aleppo and its countryside and destroying most of their vehicles, not to forget killing and wounding a great deal of them along with the inability to coordinate between Aleppo's centers and its countryside.
Living Conditions
Baladi News tried to monitor the living conditions in the besieged neighborhoods and met Hameed Abu Subhi, a grocer in al-Kallaseh neighborhood in the city of Aleppo. He said: "the besieged people in the city suffer from the lack of the row food materials such as sugar and flour, in addition to the unbelievable increase in prices. If these materials are founded in the markets, hundreds of people will flock to the bakeries to get their bread, but the bakeries sell only one bundle of bread for each family due to the lack of flour and the inability of entering it, while depending on the stockpile which began to run out".
He added: "the city's markets have been emptied from vegetables since the second day of the besiegement due to the lack of big refrigerators and not reserving big quantities of vegetables. The civilians started depending on some lands and orchards existing within the city of Aleppo. It has been observed recently that there is a high demand by the population on the trucks of vegetables coming from these orchards with the varying of prices among the vendors. Some of them are trying to sell with high prices exploiting the closure of al-Castello road and besiegement".
The vendors provide pretexts for raising the prices like the increasing prices of fuels which are not existed anymore inside the besieged city. Where hundreds of cars have been stopped due to the lack of gasoline and diesel. Even If founded, they will cost an arm and a leg, as the price of one liter of gasoline reached 1000 SYP. Moreover, a big number of workshops and factories have shut their doors too, according to Abu Subhi.
Humanitarian Condition under Bombardment
Regime's warplanes and its Russian ally have stepped up their bombardment on the residential areas which are full of civilians, medical facilities and hospitals inside the city of Aleppo after laying the besiegement and cutting the road of al-Castello till the situation reached the inability of civil defense teams to contain all the cases of bombardment in addition to the inability of the documentation team to document the airstrikes launched by regime forces and Russia on the besieged city.
Ibrahim al-Haj, director of the civil defense information office, said in an interview with Baladi News: "the pace of warplanes and helicopters has increased on the city of Aleppo after cutting the road of al-Castello and the beginning of the besiegement process. The bombardment targeted the densely populated residential areas which led to a big number of massacres along with killing and wounding hundreds of civilians. The bombardment also targeted the hospitals and medical points till all the hospitals of the city along with forensic medicine have gone out of service. Only one hospital left in the city of Aleppo with some medical points that can receive casualties".
As for the problems facing the civil defense, :al-Haj said: "we suffer from providing the fuels for the civil defense vehicles. The problem is that those vehicles consume large quantities of fuel and the civil defense teams can't pull the trapped people out of the rubble if they don't use such vehicles".
The media activist, Ahmad Muhammed, member of the Syrian Institute of Justice, provided Baladi News with important figures about the details of bombardment and explained: "regime's warplanes and helicopters have bombarded since the beginning of the besiegement 400 barrel bombs, 325 gas cylinders, 5 long-range surface-to-surface missiles, 21 short-range surface-to-surface missiles, 1107 missiles by warplanes, 192 cluster bombs, and 22 phosphorous bombs".
He continued: "the regime has targeted 780 residential areas, 23 industrial areas, 17 archeological zones, 8 medical centers, 2 schools, 12 mosques, 5 popular markets, 8 civil defense centers, and 44 public roads areas".
Concerning the martyrs' estimates, the activist said: "the bombardment has left behind 218 martyrs, including 2 media activists, 1 paramedic, 5 service cadres, 48 women, 110 children. This is only the death estimate which Aleppo city was subjected to since the beginning of the besiegement until now".
Medical Condition
After cutting al-Castello road and besieging the city of Aleppo, regime's warplanes have escalated their bombardment on the hospitals and medical points operating in the city, which led to the destruction of all the city's hospitals partially or completely and going out of service, the last of which was the hospital of Omar Bin Abdul Aziz in al-Ma'adi neighborhood and the forensic medicine in al-Sukari neighborhood.
Dr. Abu al-Ezz, a doctor at a hospital in the city of Aleppo, told Baladi News about the medical situation by saying: "The warplanes have targeted the medical personnel, centers and hospitals that provide treatment for the wounded in the city of Aleppo in a systematic and widespread way which led all the city's hospitals to go out of service along with destroying them. A single hospital for treating the wounded is the only one left and if it goes out of the service, a real disaster will happen".
It is noteworthy that the military and civilian bodies operating within the city of Aleppo did not expect regime forces and its militia to besiege the city of Aleppo all of a sudden. Therefore, there were no preparations and stockpile that can suffice the besieged for a long time, but the bodies concerned are looking for solutions to compensate the population such as investing the agricultural lands in order to achieve self-sufficiency.