Civilians in Syria's Aleppo facing 'genocide': Activist

By Mahmoud Barakat

ANKARA

Civilians trapped in besieged areas of Syria’s northwestern city of Aleppo are being subject to "genocide", according to a Syrian activist.

"We are here exposed [to] a genocide in the besieged city of Aleppo," activist Lina Shamy said in a video posted late Monday on Twitter.

"This may be my last video," she said.

On Monday, opposition fighters withdrew from Aleppo’s Bab Antakya, Bustan al-Qasr and Al-Jalloum districts after intense attacks by regime forces and their allies, according to opposition sources.

Opposition sources accuse the regime and Iranian-backed Shia militias of indiscriminately targeting civilians trapped inside besieged parts of the city.

According to Shamy, 50,000 civilians in besieged areas are being subject to "field execution or dying under bombing" conducted by the Assad regime and its allies.

"According to activists, more than 180 people have been field executed in the areas that the regime has recently [taken] control of by the Assad gangs and the militias supporting them," the activist said.

According to an Anadolu Agency correspondent, the total area held by the opposition in eastern Aleppo has recently fallen to a mere 6 square kilometers.

Shamy, however, asserted that civilians "are stuck in a very small area that doesn’t exceed 2 square kilometers".

"With no safe zone, no life, every bomb is a new massacre. Save Aleppo, save the humanity," she said.

Moreover, Lina told Anadolu Agency in a voice message last week that regime warplanes had targeted the Al-Fardos and Bustan al-Qasr districts with chlorine-laden barrel bombs.

Many civilians have been rendered homeless as regime forces advance on opposition-held parts of eastern Aleppo, Lina said, warning of an impending humanitarian catastrophe.

With the Twitter hashtag #SaveAleppo, Lina urged people all over the world to pressure the international community to stop the regime’s attacks on Aleppo’s civilian population.

Since Nov. 15, more than 1,071 civilians have been killed in eastern Aleppo in attacks by Syrian regime and Russian warplanes, local sources report.

The fierce bombardments have forced most of the city’s hospitals to halt operations, while most academic activities have been indefinitely suspended.

The recent escalation comes amid attempts by the Russia-backed Assad regime to reestablish control over parts of Aleppo captured four years ago by armed opposition groups.

Syria has been locked in a devastating civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which had erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and millions more displaced by the conflict.