Yasser al-Atrash, Ziad al-Halabi, Baladi News
After nearly three years of war and resistance, regime forces have managed to cut the only and last supplying road into the opposition areas in Aleppo. Regime forces have brought foreign militias from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan along with Palestinian and Lebanese battalions in order to support them in achieving what they failed to do over three years, with the help of a Russian air cover which deliberately burned everything and targeted the means of life and the people's steadfastness in the city by destroying the bakeries, hospitals and infrastructures which made their living second-to- impossible.
Syrian regime backed by Russia depends on tightening its siege on the country's economic capital and the second largest city in order to go to a new round of Geneva negotiations imposing its conditions. Therefore, Russia is working on adjourning the next round of negotiations for the sake of achieving this gain on the ground.
Regime's government has announced on Wednesday it's full control over al-Castello road and its vicinity, taking into consideration that the road has been cut on July, 7th, as the regime started bargaining the civilians to go out of the besieged areas as well as the armed rebels to drop their weapons and conclude reconciliation deals just like other areas which the regime had reconciled with under what it calls "National Reconciliation".
The military campaign of cutting the road and besieging the city started actually 3 months ago. It started from al-Mallah region in the northern countryside of Aleppo, in which the regime had controlled al-Castello road, the lifeline of Aleppo and the only crossing before the civilians and the road connecting between Aleppo and its countryside.
The siege endangers 400 thousand civilians within the city of Aleppo to extremely difficult humanitarian and living conditions due to the lack of all the necessities of life such as water, electricity, and foodstuffs and to the non-existence of these materials for three months, as the militias were monitoring the road with fires at that time before reaching al-Castello then cutting it, along with the lack of job opportunities in the first industrial city in the middle east which the warplanes turned it into a ruined area.
Moreover, the deteriorating health condition which the city is suffering from after the destruction caused by the regime and Russian's warplanes and helicopters to all the hospitals in the besieged city and leading them to go out of service, concurrently with the violent bombardment by regime forces' warplanes and helicopters using barrel bombs, cluster bombs, stereochemistry missiles, and artillery shells on the densely residential areas which led to the death of 900 civilians in this July only. It coincided with a severe lack in the capabilities of civil defense teams in the city of Aleppo due to the targeting of their cadres in the city and its countryside along with destroying most of their vehicles.
Food Security
The United Nations is working on launching an initiative under a close French and Britain support which includes allocating two days a week to open the roads and provide the assistance and the necessary food aid to more than 300 thousand besieged according to its estimates, otherwise the destiny of those civilians will be starving to death as what happened in other areas besieged by the regime which the international organizations didn't reach during the four years such as Madaya, al-Zabadani, and other areas in the Ghouta of Damascus and Homs, which was known as the policy of "hunger till surrender" pursued by the Syrian regime, and which is considered a war crime according to the international laws and conventions, but the United Nations only negotiated for entering the aid without even threatening to hold the perpetrators accountable.
Baladi News visited the markets of Aleppo after 20 days of besiegement and monitored the tragic situations there. Ahmad Subhi, a shop owner in al-Kallaseh areas said: "The besieged markets of Aleppo seemed almost empty of their customers 20 days after the regime forces and their allied militias had access into the road of al-Castello, the only way connecting these neighborhoods of the external world".
He went on saying: "the markets have become empty not only from vegetables and main goods, as many civilians stopped going to the markets due to the high prices of the foodstuffs which are still available at the shops of the merchants in Aleppo, but in small quantities, so the manifestations of monopoly and deliberate increasing of prices by top traders in Aleppo, started to be seen in the market". With the possibility of the prolongation of the siege imposed by regime forces, some traders have deliberately increased the prices of the materials available in their warehouses in order to prevent their depletion and to achieve greater profits by benefiting from the expected direction of the residents towards storing foodstuffs in their houses.
Muhammed Alewi, a civilian from the besieged city of Aleppo, reported the suffering of the civilians to Baladi News by saying: "the markets suffered from the absence of the basic foodstuffs and vegetables since the early days of the besiegement. The pharmacies and stores as well lacked the children milk, the most important food for children, even in the organizations and institutions concerned with its distribution to the civilians before the siege, despite what we know about the amount of storing in the warehouses. The traders started from the very beginning of the siege with the monopoly process by concealing the foodstuffs and fuels and selling them at extremely high prices. There is no water or electricity and no income if we want to buy these materials at high prices. Until this moment, we rely on the relief materials which had been given to us before the siege i.e. we depend on our housing stockpile. The relief organizations didn't give anything to the civilians for two months under the pretext of the difficulty of entering the trucks loaded with relief aid from al-Castello road".
"The only food found in the market is the watercress and parsley, while the other vegetables have been banned from us. Sometimes, vehicles loaded with vegetables from the planted orchards within the besieged city come to the markets, so people queue up and wait for hours and often will not get a role, and if you get one, their share will be a few pieces of tomatoes and zucchinis. As for the bread material, it has become a dream for the people to buy their sufficient need of bread. At dawn, hundreds of civilians go to the markets to book a place for them in the long queues in front of the bakeries; hours of waiting that may extend from dawn till afternoon in order to get a bundle of bread that contains some loafs…In a nutshell, everyone in the besieged city of Aleppo is seeing and living death every day.
Destroying the Heath Infrastructure
After cutting al-Castello road and besieging the city of Aleppo, the regime has stepped up its violent bombardment on the hospitals and medical points in the city which led to destroy all the operating hospitals in the besieged city and leading them to go out of service, the last of which was Omar Bin Abdul Aziz in al-Maadi neighborhood and the forensic medicine in al-Sukari neighborhood along with al-Dakkak, al-Bayan, Bank al-Dam, and al-Hakeem hospitals, which led all the operating medical system in the city of Aleppo to fully go out of service. The medical cadre were unable to find any alternative solutions that will enable them to compensate for the bombing of hospitals, in addition to that, the problem of referring the wounded and serious injuries that used to be transported across al-Castello road towards the Turkish territories for treatment, and the problem of medications that started to run out of the besieged city without the presence of an alternative".
Ousama Abu al-Eizz, a surgeon at M2 hospital in the besieged city of Aleppo, talked to Baladi News about the health sector in the city by saying: "the warplanes have systematically and massively targeted the medical staff, centers and field hospitals which provide treatment for the wounded in the city of Aleppo, which resulted in going all the hospitals in the city out of service and destroying them whether partially of as a whole.
The doctor went on saying: "Everyone now knows what happened in the medical system in the city of Aleppo. The health sector is also suffering just like the other operating sectors within the city of Aleppo, and we can say that its situation is better than the difficult food situation the city is facing and which can reach in the next few days famine."
Concerning the centers that are still providing health services to the civilians, the doctor said: "There are some partially-destroyed hospitals and small medical points that are not fully prepared, still operating on receiving the wounded. The medical staff there reached a state of exhaustion due to the continuous violent bombardment, without having any substitute cadres, which most of them are in the countryside of Aleppo and can't cross towards the city through al-Castello road which the regime forces and their allied militias are controlling.
As for the difficulties and challenges that face the medical cadre in the city, Abu al-Eizz said: "The most difficult challenges we face are the inability to refer the patient with chronic diseases, cancers, and neurological injuries out of the country towards the Turkish hospitals along the borders, along with the inability to shift between the medical team existed in the city as they suffer from fatigue and exhaustion and the inability to fix the damaged equipment or compensating for them. All of these reasons happened because of the monitoring of the road of al-Castello by regime forces and their supporting militias three months ago, causing the accumulation of the shortages and the inability to find solutions then cutting the road".
Regarding the possible procedures that can be taken to secure the hospitals from bombardment, the doctor explained that the orientation "is to build and fortify underground hospitals and work in them, but even the necessary equipment for this work may not be available, and even if available, the regime's warplanes may bombard them as they did with the underground hospital of Kafr Hamra which the regime destroyed it completely after dozens of airstrikes by artillery and missile launchers".
He explained that there are 4 hospitals which had been partially-destroyed and are being reconstructed, and will operate again very soon with some new fortifications, but if the regime to destroy them again, many civilians will be definitely susceptible to dying".
Avoiding the Siege
With the beginning of the siege on the liberated neighborhoods of Aleppo, activists and besieged people started reporting news and information about the difficulty of tightening the siege on those neighborhoods due to that the part of the city that is under the regime's control will, in one way or another and for different reasons, supply the trapped people with the main materials. Some others said that regime forces and their mercenaries will play the role of traders in the city's two parts even at high prices.
However, many of the besieged civilians inside the city of Aleppo see that the only way to get rid of this siege is to launch a military action against regime forces and their supporting militias, either through al-Castello road from the north or al-Sheikh Saeed from the south and any solutions away from using force will fail deficiently.
The media activist, Abdul Ghani Dabaan, talked about the possibilities of avoiding the siege by saying: "Regaining control over the road of al-Castello by the rebels will not avert the siege from the city of Aleppo, unless the rebels manage to liberate the village of Handarat and al-Mallah region that is very close to the road and which is considered the strongest fortifications of the regime forces and their militias north of the city. Regaining control of the road will not be enough as it's open before the militias centered in the village of Handarat and al-Mallah i.e. if the rebels regained control over it, Aleppo will remain besieged under the fires of the militia".
Dabaan believed that the best solution is to look for a new supplying road in the southern part of the city (al-Ramouseh, the southern liberated countryside) which are considered the best and shortest roads between the city and its countryside.
When asked about the possibility of traders, civilians, or military personnel to have any role in entering the materials from the regime-held areas into the besieged areas, the activist explained to Baladi News by saying: "It's very likely to the phenomenon of brokering and trading with the civilians food living in the besieged part of the city to spread through entering the foodstuffs and fuels from the regime-held areas to the besieged areas by coordination between the traders and the checkpoints' soldiers if the siege is prolonged and the stockpile is finished, then the prices will skyrocket and the militias will govern the civilians in the besieged part".
Concerning the possibility of displacing some the unwanted residents from the besieged part to the regime-held part, the media activist said: "I don't expect that because the civilian who stayed in the besieged city knew before months ago that the city is near besiegement, and was able to leave the country to one of its countryside instead of heading towards who besieges, kills, or bombards him, but he preferred staying and remained steadfast".
It is worth mentioning that the military and civilian bodies operating within the city of Aleppo did not expect that the regime forces and their militias to suddenly surround the city of Aleppo. Therefore, there were not any preparations, arrangements or enough stockpile to suffice the trapped people for a long time. However, the bodies concerned are looking for solutions to compensate for the population and to achieve some self-sufficiency such as planting the lands in the besieged part with the low chances of success due to lack of all the required needs.