Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in Syria’s Aleppo after the army declared two Kurdish neighbourhoods “closed military zones” amid a second day of clashes with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The directorate for social affairs said on Wednesday night that more than 45,000 people had been displaced from the city due to the fighting, most of them heading northwest towards the enclave of Afrin. Many of the fleeing families left on foot through humanitarian corridors opened by the Syrian army for civilians to leave flashpoint areas. They carried what they could, unsure when or if they would return.
Some families were also ferried out on city buses. “We fled the clashes and we don’t know where to go … Fourteen years of war, I think that’s enough,” Ahmed, a 38-year-old man who only gave his first name, told the AFP news agency while carrying his son on his back. Another displaced resident, 41-year-old Ammar Raji, said he and his family were “forced to leave because of the difficult circumstances”. “I have six children, including two young ones … I am worried we will not return,” Raji said.The clashes, which began on Tuesday and has nine people, according to an official, marked the fiercest fighting between the army and the SDF after the two sides failed to implement a March deal to integrate the Kurdish-led forces into Syria’s new state institutions. Source: aljazeera.com/
