Following an order to evacuate residents, fighting between government and Kurdish forces escalated on Thursday in a disputed district of Aleppo, in northern Syria. Tens of thousands of residents left the city when Syrian officials created a corridor for their second day of evacuation. In cooperation with the army, the Aleppo province government allowed citizens until 1 pm local time to go.
Half an hour after the deadline, the army would launch “targeted operations” against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh, and Bani Zaid, according to state news agency SANA, which cited the army. The Aleppo Central Response Committee reports that around 142,000 people have been displaced throughout the province.
According to Mohammad Ali, operations director for the Syrian Civil Defense in Aleppo, “there’s a large percentage of them with difficult medical issues, elderly people, women, and children.”
In the battle that started on Tuesday, at least 12 civilians were murdered in Kurdish-majority neighborhoods, according to Kurdish troops, while at least nine civilians were killed in nearby government-controlled districts, according to government sources.
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