Tag Archives: Death

Truck plows into crowd at Berlin Christmas market, nine dead

Police and emergency workers stand next to a crashed truck at the site of an accident at a Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz square near the fashionable Kurfuerstendamm avenue in the west of Berlin, Germany, December 19, 2016.

By Michael Nienaber

BERLIN (Reuters) – A truck plowed into a crowded Christmas market in the German capital Berlin on Monday evening, killing nine people and injuring up to 50 others, police said.

German media, citing police at the scene, said first indications pointed to an attack on the market, situated at the foot of the ruined Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church, which was kept as a bombed-out ruin after World War Two.

The incident evoked memories of an attack in France in July when Tunisian-born man drove a 19-tonne truck along the beach front, mowing down people who had gathered to watch the fireworks on Bastille Day, killing 86 people. The attack was claimed by Islamic State.

The truck careered into the Berlin market at what would have been one of the most crowded times for the Christmas market, when adults and children would be gathering in the traditional cluster of wooden huts that sell food and Christmas goods.

Berlin police said nine people were killed

“I heard a big noise and then I moved on the Christmas market and saw much chaos…many injured people,” Jan Hollitzer, deputy editor in chief of Berliner Morgenpost, told CNN.

“It was really traumatic.”

Police cars and ambulances converged quickly on the scene as a huge security operation unfolded. The fate of the driver of the truck was not immediately clear, but Bild newspaper said he was on the run.

Emma Rushton, a tourist visiting Berlin, told CNN the truck seemed to be traveling at about 40 mph (65 Kmh).

Asked how many were injured, she said that as she walked back to her hotel, she saw at least 10.

Julian Reichelt, editor in chief of Bild Berlin, said that there was currently a massive security operation under way.

“The scene certainly looks like a reminder of what we have seen in Nice,” Reichelt said,

(Reporting by Michael Nienaber; Writing by Robin Pomeroy and Ralph Boulton)

Earthquake along Ecuador’s coast kills one, destroys hotels

Map of location in Ecuador, center of earthquake

QUITO (Reuters) – A 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook Ecuador’s Pacific coast early on Monday, killing one person, injuring a dozen others and damaging hotels in the area, authorities said.

The country’s geological institute recorded the quake off the coast of Atacames in Esmeraldas province, northwest of Quito, the capital. The quake was followed by 15 lesser-magnitude aftershocks.

“We regret that a 75-year-old woman suffered a heart attack because of the quake,” national risk management secretary Susana Duenas told local radio. The health ministry said a dozen people were injured.

In a preliminary report, authorities said three hotels in the area, a popular tourist destination, were destroyed and other buildings sustained substantial damage.

President Rafael Correa was meeting with local officials in the area, which was devastated in a 7.8 magnitude quake earlier this year that killed about 670 people, displaced thousands and caused millions of dollars in damage.

Oil infrastructure in the area was unaffected by Monday’s quake, the state oil company Petroecuador said.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Driver in deadly Tennessee bus crash was speeding, holding phone

Johnthony Walker, 24, is seen in a booking photo released by the Chattanooga Police after being taken into custody and charged with five counts of vehicular homicide in connection with a school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tennesse

By Tim Ghianni

NASHVILLE (Reuters) – The driver of a school bus that crashed in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last month, killing six children, was speeding and holding a cellphone while he drove, police said on Thursday.

Johnthony Walker, 24, who police have said was driving the bus on Nov. 21 on a winding road well above the speed limit of 30 miles per hour (48 kph), has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving.

A Hamilton County Criminal Court judge on Thursday said there was enough evidence to send the case to a grand jury.

“I do find the conduct to be reckless,” Hamilton County General Sessions Judge Lila Statom said. “There was a conscious disregard for the risk in this case.”

The bus veered off the road, flipped on its side and smashed into a tree, injuring over a dozen children in addition to the six killed, police have said.

Officials said on Thursday that Walker had been videotaped on the bus holding his cell phone while he drove, which is illegal for school bus drivers in Tennessee.

Electronic evidence, including readings from a GPS unit and engine monitor on the bus, shows the bus was traveling between “50 and 52 miles an hour,” (80 to 83 kph), Chattanooga Police Department traffic officer Joe Warren told the court on Thursday during a court appearance by Walker, who did not speak.

In addition, there were several caution signs saying that the road’s curves need to be negotiated at 20 mph, Warren said.

Warren described a video showing Walker holding his cell phone while he drove. Warren did not say whether Walker was using the phone at the time. The video was not shown in court. Warren said it was recorded by a camera inside the bus.

No drugs or alcohol were found in Walker’s system.

Walker’s attorney, Amanda Dunn, could not be reached for comment. She refused to comment to local reporters as she left the courtroom Thursday.

According to court records, Walker remains in jail on $107,000 bond.

(Writing by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Leslie Adler)

‘Get us out of here’: desperate Aleppo residents fear arrest, death

Children walk together as they flee deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria

By Laila Bassam and Lisa Barrington

ALEPPO, Syria / BEIRUT (Reuters) – As the four-month siege of eastern Aleppo neared its end, some survivors trudged in the rain past dead bodies to the government-held west or the few districts still in rebel hands.

Others stayed in their homes and awaited the Syrian army’s arrival.

For all of them, fear of arrest, conscription or summary execution had added to the daily terror of bombardment.

“People are saying the troops have lists of families of fighters and are asking them if they had sons with the terrorists. (They are) then either left or shot and left to die,” said Abu Malek al-Shamali in Seif al-Dawla, one of the last rebel-held neighborhoods.

The United Nations said it had reports that Syrian government troops and their Iraqi militia allies had killed civilians in eastern Aleppo, including 82 people in four different neighborhoods in the last few days.

Speaking from a small area still under rebel control, father of five Abu Ibrahim, said he knew of two families executed by the advancing militias that have formed the vanguard of the assault on Syria’s second city.

The United Nations also said it was concerned about reports that hundreds of young men leaving rebel-held territory had been detained.

People walk as they flee deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria December 13, 2016.

People walk as they flee deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria December 13, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents have accused the government of mass arrests and forced conscription. The government has denied this and accused rebels of compelling men to fight in their ranks.

On Sunday foreign journalists were invited to a ceremony where Syria’s army enlisted 220 men, including former rebels and others from areas captured by the government.

“You have been recalled to obligatory service,” Brigadier Habib Safia told the men in the military police headquarters in a government-held Aleppo district.

One of the men, Mohammed Hilal, in his 20s, said he and some comrades had escaped from the east along with more than 60 families and that he was ready to join the army.

WIPED OFF THE WORLD

Those still trapped in eastern Aleppo have been using social media to distribute messages they feared would be their last.

“This is a message from someone saying farewell and who could face death or arrest at any time,” a medic working in Aleppo wrote via the Whatsapp messaging service.

“Trapped from all sides, death comes from the sky in barrels … Remember what you had in Aleppo, that there was a city called Aleppo wiped off the map and from history by the world.”

Abu Yousef, in his thirties, said he and his family fled bombardments, tanks and executions in his home neighborhood of Bustan al-Qasr.

“Thanks to god, we are still alive … the regime is constantly bombing us. My two children are injured, I am injured. The regime wants to kill us all. We are very afraid,” he said.

“You tell me ‘may God protect you’. I don’t want God to protect us, we want a solution! We want a cessation of hostilities. We want someone to get us out of here. It’s enough. People are dying,” he said.

The UN has called for international oversight for civilians and rebel fighters as the government takes over.

“The only way to alleviate the deep foreboding and suspicion that massive crimes may be under way both within Aleppo, and in relation to some of those who fled or were captured, whether fighters or civilians, is for there to be monitoring by external bodies, such as the UN,” UN human rights office spokesman Rupert Colville said.

Children’s charity War Child said: “What we are witnessing in Aleppo is a humanitarian catastrophe of historic proportions, bearing comparison to infamous disasters of the past – such as Srebrenica and Guernica.”

IT’S HELL

East Aleppo’s civil defense rescue organization, which pulled many hundreds of dead and injured from rubble over years of the war, told Reuters rescue services had stopped.

“Our machinery and equipment is all broken. We have nothing left … We are working with our hands just to get people from under the rubble,” said Ibrahim Abu Laith, an official from the civil defense group also known as the White Helmets.

The civil defense wrote on its Twitter account on Tuesday it could no longer keep track of the numbers of dead.

“There is no total number of casualties in besieged Aleppo today, all streets and destroyed buildings are full with dead bodies. It’s hell.”

With hospitals bombed out of service, aid stocks exhausted and a brutal bombing campaign in recent weeks, people in east Aleppo are desperate.

“People, even those wanted (by the regime) have started to flee to the regime from the intensity of the shelling, hunger, cold and amount of injuries which are not treated, in addition to the corpses in the streets … Planes and artillery are hitting strongly places where civilians are gathering,” the medic said in his message.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein warned that what we are seeing now in Aleppo could happen to populations of other towns outside government control such as Douma, Raqqa and Idlib.

“The crushing of Aleppo, the immeasurably terrifying toll on its people, the bloodshed, the wanton slaughter of men, women and children, the destruction – and we are nowhere near the end of this cruel conflict,” Zeid said.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington, John Davison, Ellen Francis and Angus McDowall in Beirut, Laila Bassam in Aleppo and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Editing by Janet McBride)

Battle of Aleppo ends after years of fighting as rebels agree to withdraw

People walk as they flee deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria

By Laila Bassam and Stephanie Nebehay

ALEPPO, Syria/GENEVA (Reuters) – Rebel resistance in Syria’s Aleppo ended on Tuesday after years of fighting and months of bitter siege and bombardment that culminated in a bloody collapse of their defenses this week, as insurgents agreed to withdraw in a ceasefire.

Rebel officials said fighting would end on Tuesday evening and insurgents and the civilians who have been trapped in the tiny pocket of territory they hold in Aleppo would leave the city for opposition-held areas of the countryside to the west.

News of the deal, confirmed by Russia’s U.N. envoy, came after the United Nations voiced deep concern about reports it had received of Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters summarily shooting dead 82 people in recaptured east Aleppo districts. It accused them of “slaughter”.

“My latest information is that they indeed have an arrangement achieved on the ground that the fighters are going to leave the city,” Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters. It could happen “within hours maybe”, he said.

A surrender or withdrawal of the rebels from Aleppo would mean the end of the rebellion in the city, Syria’s largest until the outbreak of war after mass protests in 2011.

By finally dousing the last embers of resistance burning in Aleppo, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military coalition of the army, Russian air power and Iran-backed militias will have delivered him his biggest battlefield victory of the war.

However, while the rebels, including groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as jihadist groups that the West does not support, will suffer a crushing defeat in Aleppo, the war will be far from over.

“The crushing of Aleppo, the immeasurably terrifying toll on its people, the bloodshed, the wanton slaughter of men, women and children, the destruction – and we are nowhere near the end of this cruel conflict,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said in a statement.

Govermental Syrian forces fire into sky as celebrating their victory against rebels in eastern Aleppo, Syria

Govermental Syrian forces fire into sky as celebrating their victory against rebels in eastern Aleppo, Syria December 12,2016. REUTERS/ Omar Sanadiki

“MELTDOWN OF HUMANITY”

The rout of rebels from their ever-shrinking territory in Aleppo has sparked a mass flight of civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity”.

“The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said U.N. spokesman Rupert Colville. “There could be many more.”

The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and its main ally Russia said on Tuesday rebels had “kept over 100,000 people as human shields”.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon briefed the 15-member U.N. Security Council at 12 p.m. (1700 GMT) at the request of Britain and France. France said it had called for a meeting to focus on possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.

Colville said the rebel-held area was “a hellish corner” of less than a square kilometer, adding its capture was imminent.

The Syrian army and its allies could declare victory at any moment, a Syrian military source had said, predicting the final fall of the rebel enclave on Tuesday or Wednesday, after insurgent defenses collapsed on Monday.

(Reporting By Laila Bassam in Aleppo, Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Pravin Char and Peter Millership)

Aleppo could fall ‘at any moment’, U.N. reports civilian slaughter

Free Syrian Army fighters fire an anti-aircraft weapon in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, Syria.

By Laila Bassam and Stephanie Nebehay

ALEPPO, Syria/GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Tuesday it had reports that Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters had summarily shot dead 82 children, women and men in recaptured east Aleppo and a military source said the last rebel pocket could fall “at any moment”.

The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and its main ally Russia said on Tuesday rebels had “kept over 100,000 people as human shields”.

The rout of rebels from their ever-shrinking territory in Aleppo has sparked a mass flight of civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity”.

Hopes for a last-ditch deal to end the fighting by withdrawing fighters also seemed in doubt, with Moscow rejecting calls for an immediate ceasefire as concern grew over the fate of civilians.

“The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. office. “There could be many more.”

France said it had called for an immediate U.N. Security Council meeting over the alleged atrocities to focus on possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.

Colville said the rebel-held area was “a hellish corner” of less than a square kilometer, adding its capture was imminent.

The Syrian army and its allies could declare victory at any moment, a Syrian military source said, predicting the final fall of the rebel enclave on Tuesday or Wednesday, after insurgent defences collapsed on Monday.

“WANTON SLAUGHTER”

Turkish and Russian officials will meet on Wednesday to examine a possible ceasefire and opening a corridor, a senior Turkish official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

But Moscow, the Syrian government’s most powerful ally, rejected any immediate call for a ceasefire. “The Russian side wants to do that only when the corridors are established,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

A man carries a child with an IV drip as he flees deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria

A man carries a child with an IV drip as he flees deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

The spokesman for the civil defence force in the former rebel area of Aleppo reckoned rebels controlled an area of less than three sq km. “The situation is very, very bad. The civil defence has stopped operating in the city,” he told Reuters.

A surrender or withdrawal of the rebels from Aleppo would mean the end of the rebellion in the city, Syria’s largest until the outbreak of war after mass protests in 2011, but it is unclear if such a deal can be struck by world powers.

By finally dousing the last embers of resistance burning in Aleppo, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military coalition of the army, Russian air power and Iran-backed militias will have delivered him his biggest battlefield victory of the war.

However, while the rebels, including groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as jihadist groups that the West does not support, will suffer a crushing defeat in Aleppo, the war will be far from over.

“The crushing of Aleppo, the immeasurably terrifying toll on its people, the bloodshed, the wanton slaughter of men, women and children, the destruction – and we are nowhere near the end of this cruel conflict,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said in a statement.

“FLEEING IN PANIC”

Aleppo’s loss will leave the rebels without a significant presence in any of Syria’s main cities, but they still hold much of the countryside west of Aleppo and the province of Idlib, also in northwest Syria.

Islamic State also has a big presence in Syria and has advanced in recent days, taking the desert city of Palmyra.

The army and its allies were advancing towards the Sukkari, Tel al-Zarazir and parts of Seif al-Dawla and al-Amariya districts, the Syrian military source said. “When the army regains control of these areas, its operation in the eastern areas of the city… will have finished”.

After days of intense bombardment of rebel-held areas, the rate of shelling and air strikes dropped considerably late on Monday and through the night as the weather deteriorated, a Reuters reporter in the city said.

However, rocket fire pounded rebel-held areas, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, reported. Rebels and government forces still fought at points around the reduced enclave, the Observatory said.

Smoke rises as seen from a government-held area of Aleppo, Syria

Smoke rises as seen from a government-held area of Aleppo, Syria December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF cited an unnamed doctor in Aleppo as saying that many unaccompanied children were trapped in a building that was under attack, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had no knowledge of the incident.

“Artillery shelling is continuing but because of the weather the aerial bombing has stopped. Many of the families and children have not left for areas under the control of the regime because their fathers are from the rebels,” said Abu Ibrahim, a resident of Aleppo in a text message.

Colville said he feared retribution. “In all, as of yesterday evening we have received reports of pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children,” Colville told a news briefing, naming the Iraqi armed group Harakat al-Nujaba as reportedly involved in the killings.

The military official said the rebels were fleeing “in a state of panic”, but a Turkish-based official with the Jabha Shamiya insurgent group in Aleppo said on Monday night that they had established a new frontline along the river.

“The bombardment is not on the frontlines, the greater burden of the bombardment is on the civilians, and this is what is causing a burden on us,” the official said.

Terrible conditions were described by city residents.

Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. “There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al-Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said.

“Last night people slept in the streets and in buildings where every flat has several families crowded in,” he added.

Celebrations on the government side of the divided city lasted into Monday night, with fighters shooting rounds into the sky in triumph.

TIDE OF REFUGEES

A daily bulletin issued by the Russian Defence Ministry’s “reconciliation center” from the Hmeimin airbase used by its warplanes, reported that more than 8,000 civilians, more than half of them children, had left east Aleppo in 24 hours.

State television broadcast footage of a tide of hundreds of refugees walking along a ravaged street, wearing thick clothes against the rain and cold, many with hoods or hats pulled tight around their faces, and hauling sacks or bags of belongings.

One man pushed a bicycle loaded with bags, another family pulled a cart on which sat an elderly woman. Another man carried on his back a small girl wearing a pink hat.

At the same time, a correspondent from a pro-Damascus television station spoke to camera from a part of Aleppo held by the government, standing in a tidy street with flowing traffic.

In some recaptured areas, people were returning to their shattered homes. A woman in her sixties, who identified herself as Umm Ali, or “Ali’s mother”, said that she, her husband and her disabled daughter had no water.

They were looking after the orphaned children of another daughter killed in the bombing, she said, and were reduced to putting pots and pans in the street to collect rainwater.

In another building near al-Shaar district, which was taken by the army last week, a man was fixing the balcony of his house with his children. “No matter the circumstances, our home is better than displacement,” he said.

(Reporting By Laila Bassam in Aleppo, Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Pravin Char and Peter Millership)

Italy convicts Tunisian over sinking that killed almost 700 migrants

Mohammed Ali Malek is seen at Catania's tribunal,

By Antonio Parrinello

CATANIA, Sicily (Reuters) – A Tunisian man accused of being the captain of a migrant boat that sank killing almost 700 people was found guilty of multiple manslaughter and people-smuggling on Tuesday and sentenced to 18 years in jail.

Only 28 people survived the disaster in April last year, when the small fishing boat capsized off the coast of Libya, with hundreds trapped in the hold.

Mohammed Ali Malek, 28, was one of those rescued and denied being the captain, saying he had paid for passage like everyone else, but a court in the city of Catania dismissed his defense.

The court also sentenced 26-year-old Syrian Mahmud Bikhit to five years in prison on charges of people-smuggling. Survivors said Bikhit had been Malek’s cabin boy. He had denied any wrongdoing.

Both men were also handed fines of nine million euros ($9.5 million). Their lawyers said they would appeal the convictions.

“We think we have some strong arguments and we will try and work on some of the weaker points of our defense,” said Massimo Ferrante, representing Malek.

Outrage over the incident prompted European Union leaders to bolster its own search-and-rescue mission in the Mediterranean days after the boat went down.

In the past three years, roughly half a million boat migrants have arrived on Italian shores and almost 12,000 have died in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Prosecutors had told the court that Malek mishandled the grossly overloaded fishing boat, which left from Darabli, Libya, carrying men, women and children from Algeria, Somalia, Egypt, Senegal, Zambia, Mali, Bangladesh and Ghana.

They say he caused the vessel to collide with a Portuguese merchant ship that was coming to its aid.

As passengers rushed away from the side of the boat which had struck the ship, it capsized and sank within minutes.

State prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro said in a statement that the case showed Italy had the right to press smuggling charges over incidents in international waters.

The Italian justice system got involved this time because the survivors were brought to Italy. Italy’s navy raised the boat in June and 675 bodies were recovered.

Earlier this year another migrant boat sank in the Mediterranean killing around 500 people, with the survivors taken to Greece. A Reuters investigation found that no official body, national or multinational, has held anyone to account for the deaths or even opened an inquiry.

(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Philip Pullella and Andrew Roche)

Famine may have killed 2,000 people in parts of Nigeria cut off from aid by Boko Haram

Nigeria to release $1 billion from excess oil account to fight Boko Haram

DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – More than 2,000 people may have died of famine this year in parts of northeast Nigeria which cannot be reached by aid agencies due to an insurgency by Islamic militant group Boko Haram, hunger experts said on Tuesday.

The deaths occurred in the town of Bama in Nigeria’s Borno state, the jihadists’ former stronghold, a report by the U.S.-based Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) said.

While food aid is staving off famine for people uprooted by conflict who can be reached, the outlook is bleak for those in parts of the northeast cut off from help, according to FEWS NET.

“The risk of famine in inaccessible areas of Borno State will remain high over the coming year,” the report said.

“In a worst-case scenario, where conflict cuts off areas that are currently accessible and dependent on assistance, the likelihood of famine in these areas would be high,” it added.

Around 4.7 million people are in need of emergency food aid in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states – nearly two-thirds of them in Borno alone – according to FEWS NET.

Some 400,000 children are at risk from famine in the three states, 75,000 of whom could die from hunger within months, the U.N. children’s agency (UNICEF) said in September.

Yet the current humanitarian response is insufficient amid extreme levels of food insecurity, and only one million people have received food aid this year, FEWS NET said.

Almost four in five of the 1.4 million displaced Nigerians in Borno state are living in local communities, where tensions are rising in many families as food runs short.

Improving security has enabled aid agencies this year to reach some areas that were previously cut off, but many remain unreachable due to the ongoing violence and lack of security.

Boko Haram militants have killed about 15,000 people and displaced 2.4 million across Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria during a seven-year campaign to create an Islamist caliphate.

Nigeria’s army has pushed the Islamist group back to its base in Sambisa forest in the past few months, but the militants still often stage raids and suicide bombings.

(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, Editing by Katie Nguyen. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

Thousands flee Aleppo onslaught as battle reaches climax

Aleppo family flees war zone

By Laila Bassam and Stephanie Nebehay

ALEPPO, Syria/GENEVA (Reuters) – Thousands of people fled the front lines of fighting in Aleppo on Tuesday as the Syrian military hammered the final pocket of rebel resistance and Russia rejected an immediate ceasefire.

The rout of rebels from their ever-shrinking territory in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity” with civilians being shot dead.

The U.N. human rights office said it had reports of abuses, including that the army and allied Iraqi militiamen summarily killed at least 82 civilians in captured districts of the city, once a flourishing economic center with renowned ancient sites.

“The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. office. “There could be many more.”

Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.

Colville said the rebel-held area was “a hellish corner” of less than a square kilometer, adding its capture was imminent.

The Syrian army and its allies are in the “last moments before declaring victory” in Aleppo, a Syrian military source said, after rebel defences collapsed, leaving insurgents in a tiny, heavily bombarded pocket of ground.

Turkish and Russian officials will meet on Wednesday to examine a possible ceasefire and opening a corridor, a senior Turkish official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

But Moscow, the Syrian government’s most powerful ally, rejected any immediate call for a ceasefire. “The Russian side wants to do that only when the corridors are established,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

The spokesman for the civil defence force in the former rebel area of Aleppo said rebels now controlled an area of less than three sq km. “The situation is very, very bad. The civil defence has stopped operating in the city,” he told Reuters.

A surrender or withdrawal of the rebels from Aleppo would mean the end of the rebellion in the city, Syria’s largest until the outbreak of war after mass protests in 2011, but it is unclear if such a deal can be struck by world powers.

By finally dousing the last embers of resistance burning in Aleppo, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military coalition of the army, Russian air power and Iran-backed militias will have delivered him his biggest battlefield victory of the war.

However, while the rebels, including groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as jihadist groups that the West does not support, will suffer a crushing defeat in Aleppo, the war will be far from over.

“FLEEING IN PANIC”

Aleppo’s loss will leave the rebels without a significant presence in any of Syria’s main cities, but they still hold much of the countryside west of Aleppo and the province of Idlib, also in northwest Syria.

Islamic State also has a big presence in Syria and has advanced in recent days, taking the desert city of Palmyra.

The army and its allies had taken full control over all the Aleppo districts abandoned by rebels during their retreat in the city, a Syrian military source said on Tuesday.

After days of intense bombardment of rebel-held areas, the rate of shelling and air strikes dropped considerably late on Monday and through the night as the weather deteriorated, a Reuters reporter in the city said.

However, rocket fire pounded rebel-held areas, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, reported. Rebels and government forces still fought at points around the reduced enclave, the Observatory said.

The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF cited an unnamed doctor in Aleppo as saying that many unaccompanied children were trapped in a building that was under attack, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had no knowledge of the incident.

“Artillery shelling is continuing but because of the weather the aerial bombing has stopped. Many of the families and children have not left for areas under the control of the regime because their fathers are from the rebels,” said Abu Ibrahim, a resident of Aleppo in a text message.

Colville said he feared retribution. “In all, as of yesterday evening we have received reports of pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children,” Colville told a news briefing, naming the Iraqi armed group Harakat al-Nujaba as reportedly involved in the killings.

The military official said the rebels were fleeing “in a state of panic”, but a Turkish-based official with the Jabha Shamiya insurgent group in Aleppo said on Monday night that they had established a new frontline along the river.

“The bombardment is not on the frontlines, the greater burden of the bombardment is on the civilians, and this is what is causing a burden on us,” the official said.

Terrible conditions were described by city residents.

Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. “There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said.

“Last night people slept in the streets and in buildings where every flat has several families crowded in,” he added.

Celebrations on the government side of the divided city lasted into Monday night, with fighters shooting rounds into the sky in triumph.

TIDE OF REFUGEES

A daily bulletin issued by the Russian Defence Ministry’s “reconciliation center” from the Hmeimin airbase used by its warplanes, reported that more than 8,000 civilians, more than half of them children, had left east Aleppo in 24 hours.

State television broadcast footage of a tide of hundreds of refugees walking along a ravaged street, wearing thick clothes against the rain and cold, many with hoods or hats pulled tight around their faces, and hauling sacks or bags of belongings.

One man pushed a bicycle loaded with bags, another family pulled a cart on which sat an elderly woman. Another man carried on his back a small girl wearing a pink hat.

At the same time, a correspondent from a pro-Damascus television station spoke to camera from a part of Aleppo held by the government, standing in a tidy street with flowing traffic.

In some recaptured areas, people were returning to their shattered homes. A woman in her sixties, who identified herself as Umm Ali, or “Ali’s mother”, said that she, her husband and her disabled daughter had no water.

They were looking after the orphaned children of another daughter killed in the bombing, she said, and were reduced to putting pots and pans in the street to collect rainwater.

In another building near al-Shaar district, which was taken by the army last week, a man was fixing the balcony of his house with his children. “No matter the circumstances, our home is better than displacement,” he said.

All around the buildings in that area were earthen fortifications and rebel slogans daubed on walls. But in a playground, all the equipment was burned.

(Reporting By Laila Bassam in Aleppo, Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Pravin Char and Peter Millership)

Syrian army in ‘final stages’ of Aleppo offensive

Smoke and flames rise after air strikes on rebel-controlled besieged area of Aleppo, as seen from a government-held side, in

By Laila Bassam and Lisa Barrington

ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army and its allies are in the “final stages” of recapturing Aleppo after a sudden advance that has pushed rebels to the brink of collapse in an ever-shrinking enclave, a Syrian general said on Monday.

A Reuters journalist in the government-held zone said the bombardment of rebel areas of the city had continued non-stop overnight, and a civilian trapped there described the situation as resembling “Doomsday”.

“The battle in eastern Aleppo should end quickly. They (rebels) don’t have much time. They either have to surrender or die,” Lieutenant General Zaid al-Saleh, head of the government’s Aleppo security committee, told reporters in the recaptured Sheikh Saeed district of the city.

Rebels withdrew from all districts on the east side of the Aleppo river after losing Sheikh Saeed in the south of their pocket in overnight fighting, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It meant their rapidly diminishing enclave had halved in only a few hours and Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman described the battle for Aleppo as having reached its end.

“The situation is extremely difficult today,” said Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim rebel group fighting in Aleppo.

An official from Jabha Shamiya, a rebel faction that is also present in Aleppo, said the insurgents might make a new stand along the west bank of the river.

“It is expected there will be a new front line,” said the official, who is based in Turkey.

The rebels’ sudden retreat represented a “big collapse in terrorist morale”, a Syrian military source said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, is now close to taking back full control of Aleppo, which was Syria’s most populous city before the war and would be his greatest prize so far after nearly six years of conflict.

The Russian Defence Ministry said that since the start of the Aleppo battle, more than 2,200 rebels had surrendered and 100,000 civilians had left areas of the city that were controlled by militants.

“People run from one shelling to another to escape death and just to save their souls … It’s doomsday in Aleppo, yes doomsday in Aleppo,” said Abu Amer Iqab, a former government employee in the Sukkari district in the heart of the rebel enclave.

State television footage from Saliheen, one of the districts that had just fallen to the army, showed mounds of rubble and half-collapsed buildings, with bodies still lying on the ground and a few bewildered civilians carrying children or suitcases.

REBELS

While Aleppo’s fall would deal a stunning blow to rebels trying to remove Assad from power, he would still be far from restoring control across Syria. Swathes of the country remain in rebel hands, and on Sunday Islamic State retook Palmyra.

Tens of thousands of civilians remain in rebel-held areas, hemmed in by ever-changing front lines, pounded by air strikes and shelling, and without basic supplies, according to the Observatory, a British-based monitoring group.

In the Sheikh Saeed district, an elderly couple stood lamenting their fate.

“May every son return to his mother. I have suffered that loss. May other women not endure the same,” said the woman, her arms raised to the sky. “I have lost my three children. Two died in battle and the third is kidnapped,” she added, as an army officer attempted to calm her.

Rebel groups in Aleppo received a U.S.-Russian proposal on Sunday for a withdrawal of fighters and civilians from the city’s opposition areas, but Moscow said no agreement had been reached yet in talks in Geneva to end the crisis peacefully.

The rebel official blamed Russia for the lack of progress in talks, saying it had no incentive to compromise while Assad was gaining ground. “The Russians are being evasive. They are looking at the military situation. Now they are advancing,” he said.

The U.S. National Security Council also said, in a message passed on by the American mission in Geneva, that Moscow had rejected a ceasefire. “We proposed an immediate cessation of hostilities to allow for safe departures and the Russians so far have refused,” it said in a statement.

FIGHTING

The Syrian army is backed by Russian war planes and Lebanese and Iraqi Shi’ite militias supported by Iran. Its advances on Monday were aided by a militia of Palestinian refugees in Syria, the Liwa al-Quds or Jerusalem Brigade, the general said.

The mostly Sunni rebels include groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies as well as hardline jihadists who are not supported by the West.

A correspondent for Syria’s official SANA news agency said the army had taken control of Sheikh Saeed, and more than 3,500 people had left at dawn.

A Syrian official told Reuters: “We managed to take full control of the Sheikh Saeed district. This area is very important because it facilitates access to al-Amariya and allows us to secure a greater part of the Aleppo-Ramousah road.” The road is the main entry point to the city from the south.

Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad walk past damaged buildings in the government held Sheikh Saeed district of Aleppo, during a media tour, Syria

Forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad walk past damaged buildings in the government held Sheikh Saeed district of Aleppo, during a media tour, Syria December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

The loss of Palmyra, an ancient desert city whose recapture from Islamic State in March was heralded by Damascus and Moscow as vindicating Russia’s entry into the war, is an embarrassing setback to Assad.

The Observatory reported that the jihadist group carried out eight executions of Syrian soldiers and allied militiamen in Palmyra on Monday while warplanes bombarded their positions around the city.

Another four people, including two children, were shot dead while the jihadists cleared the city, it said.

The Observatory said at least 34 people had died in air raids on an Islamic State-held village north of Palmyra, and that local officials said poison gas had been used. Islamic State accused Russia of the attack. Both Russia and Syria’s military deny using chemical weapons.

CIVILIANS

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Monday that 728 rebels had laid down their weapons over the previous 24 hours and relocated to western Aleppo. It said 13,346 civilians left rebel-controlled districts of Aleppo over the same period.

“Displaced people are moving,” said an Aleppo resident. Some were moving from areas controlled by the army to opposition areas, while others were going in the opposite direction. Some were staying at home waiting for the army.

The Observatory said that four weeks into the army offensive at least 415 civilians, including 47 children, had been killed in rebel-held parts of the city.

Hundreds had been injured by Russian and Syrian air strikes and shelling by government forces and its allies on the besieged eastern part of the city.

The Observatory said 364 rebel fighters had been killed in the eastern sector. It said rebel shelling of government-held west Aleppo had killed 130 civilians, including 40 children. Dozens had been injured.

(This version of the story corrects attribution of comment to U.S. National Security Council)

(Reporting by Laila Bassam in Aleppo, Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Giles Elgood)