Madali
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The Telegraph reports on how people are held hostage in Aleppo by the rebels:
But slowly and with great deliberation, Khaled Kadoura describes how hundreds of east Aleppo militiamen prevented at rifle-point thousands of civilians from fleeing their enclave over the past two weeks, how they shot dead six people, including a pregnant woman, and of how, after Samira and Khaled had reached the west of the city with their son, the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham arrested Khaled’s 27-year old brother Hamzi and sentenced him to execution. The news, he says, was broadcast on the opposition ‘Aleppo Today’ television and he is now desperately telephoning eastern Aleppo to see if the sentence has been carried out.
“Even my friends were arrested after we left,” he says. “The militias came to our house after we crossed, they stole from our shop and smashed our home to warn other people not to do the same thing we did. They had told me that if we left east Aleppo, the government would execute us, but when we came here they didn’t.” He is staying now with relatives in the west, a man who might once have been called middle class – he still has his deeds to his lands and broken property in eastern Aleppo – but who now sits in a grey robe and black woolen hat, his wife dressed all in black. They need to register now with the UN for food.
...
“On the day this started [20 October], the armed groups in east Aleppo surrounded the people who wanted to leave with a sort of ‘security circle’ to prevent them going out,” Khaled says. “They even had weapons in their hands. They shot at some people – I was told six died – and they killed a pregnant woman. She was killed and there were others wounded. They accused the [Syrian] government of shelling the passageways. We waited till night to cross and we waited till after the Maghreb prayers when we knew that the armed men near the crossing point would have gone to rest. Later, they were all arrested and accused of taking bribes to allow us to cross. We had to be so careful because of mines.”
Khaled and his family had discussed how to cross many times – they succeeded only at their second attempt and another family which tried to follow them on the same route were caught by the militias. “We used to say there are so many of us who want to go, why can’t we force our way? We talked about how the Palestinians used knives against the Israelis. Why couldn’t we do the same to get out?” It was a highly unusual parallel for an Arab Syrian family to draw in Aleppo, to compare the Palestinians’ oppressors with the men who are supposedly defending eastern Aleppo.”
...
We saw a lot of Saudi and Gulf and even Azerbaijani and Afghan and Chechen and Chinese fighters – I knew a lot of their nationalities because I had seen their countrymen on the Haj. The Chinese Uighurs brought their families with them to the suburb of Khan al-Asal. There were Europeans too, I saw their eyes were blue.
...
“Yes, the aircraft bombed the schools, the hospitals – but all these hospitals are also bases for militias and their weapons. The hospitals have some patients, but lots of rockets are on the top of hospitals where they use them to rocket the west of the city.” Kadoura named three hospitals which he said were used for bases.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ias-to-remain-in-eastern-aleppo-a7389346.html
But slowly and with great deliberation, Khaled Kadoura describes how hundreds of east Aleppo militiamen prevented at rifle-point thousands of civilians from fleeing their enclave over the past two weeks, how they shot dead six people, including a pregnant woman, and of how, after Samira and Khaled had reached the west of the city with their son, the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham arrested Khaled’s 27-year old brother Hamzi and sentenced him to execution. The news, he says, was broadcast on the opposition ‘Aleppo Today’ television and he is now desperately telephoning eastern Aleppo to see if the sentence has been carried out.
“Even my friends were arrested after we left,” he says. “The militias came to our house after we crossed, they stole from our shop and smashed our home to warn other people not to do the same thing we did. They had told me that if we left east Aleppo, the government would execute us, but when we came here they didn’t.” He is staying now with relatives in the west, a man who might once have been called middle class – he still has his deeds to his lands and broken property in eastern Aleppo – but who now sits in a grey robe and black woolen hat, his wife dressed all in black. They need to register now with the UN for food.
...
“On the day this started [20 October], the armed groups in east Aleppo surrounded the people who wanted to leave with a sort of ‘security circle’ to prevent them going out,” Khaled says. “They even had weapons in their hands. They shot at some people – I was told six died – and they killed a pregnant woman. She was killed and there were others wounded. They accused the [Syrian] government of shelling the passageways. We waited till night to cross and we waited till after the Maghreb prayers when we knew that the armed men near the crossing point would have gone to rest. Later, they were all arrested and accused of taking bribes to allow us to cross. We had to be so careful because of mines.”
Khaled and his family had discussed how to cross many times – they succeeded only at their second attempt and another family which tried to follow them on the same route were caught by the militias. “We used to say there are so many of us who want to go, why can’t we force our way? We talked about how the Palestinians used knives against the Israelis. Why couldn’t we do the same to get out?” It was a highly unusual parallel for an Arab Syrian family to draw in Aleppo, to compare the Palestinians’ oppressors with the men who are supposedly defending eastern Aleppo.”
...
We saw a lot of Saudi and Gulf and even Azerbaijani and Afghan and Chechen and Chinese fighters – I knew a lot of their nationalities because I had seen their countrymen on the Haj. The Chinese Uighurs brought their families with them to the suburb of Khan al-Asal. There were Europeans too, I saw their eyes were blue.
...
“Yes, the aircraft bombed the schools, the hospitals – but all these hospitals are also bases for militias and their weapons. The hospitals have some patients, but lots of rockets are on the top of hospitals where they use them to rocket the west of the city.” Kadoura named three hospitals which he said were used for bases.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ias-to-remain-in-eastern-aleppo-a7389346.html
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