REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas recounts scenes from Aleppo amid escalating clashes between the Syrian army and SDF forces.
I arrived in Aleppo early on Wednesday morning after receiving reports of serious clashes between the Syrian army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). What I encountered was far worse than I expected.
Heavy artillery shelling was constant, extreme. My team came under attack four times; one bullet hit our equipment.
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This round of clashes, we quickly understood, would not be easily contained like earlier bouts over the past year.
The root of the conflict is the government’s demand for the SDF, which has tens of thousands of troops, to integrate into state institutions, as per an agreement reached between the two sides last March. But there are numerous disputes over how that should happen, including the number of SDF troops that will join the army.
‘Overwhelming sense of despair’
Fighting has centred in heavily populated parts of Aleppo, specifically the districts of Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud. In total, these areas have about 400,000 inhabitants. Within 24 hours of fighting erupting, 160,000 fled their homes. It was like an exodus.
On Thursday, when the fighting peaked, people struggled to make their way through the streets without being caught in the crossfire. Children screamed and cried in panic. Families held each other’s hands and clothes in order to not lose track of each other.
One elderly man said he had seen enough after nearly 15 years of civil strife: “May God take my soul so I can rest,” he said.
An elderly woman, barely able to walk, fell to the ground amid the crowd and several people trampled over her. I saw her son break into tears as he tried to pull her from the ground.
The last time I saw scenes like this was in 2014, when ISIL (ISIS) attacked Syria’s Kurdish-majority town of Kobane. There was an overwhelming sense of despair, helplessness, and a feeling that everything was ending.
Short-lived ceasefire
On Friday, the warring parties agreed to a morning ceasefire and the SDF leadership agreed its fighters would lay down their heavy weapons and leave the area. However, when buses arrived to take them, more fighting broke out. When the buses came back later, the same thing happened. Our sources told us this was due to divisions within the SDF, with more radical factions resisting the calls to lay down their arms.
The back and forth ended with the Syrian government setting a deadline of 6pm (15:00 GMT) on Friday for remaining civilians to flee, after which it would restart military operations against SDF targets. Heavy fighting has since resumed in Sheikh Maqsoud.
The government, careful to avoid the perception of demographic engineering, has said that once it clears the area of SDF fighters, everyone will be able to come home. It has stressed that this is not a fight between Arabs and Kurds, but between government forces and a non-state force.
Meanwhile, people from Aleppo are sitting between hope and fear. On the one hand, they hope an agreement is finally reached between the SDF and Syrian army so they can return to their homes. But on the other hand, after 15 years of civil war, they fear that history could be repeating itself.