Syrian Army Tries to Choke off Rebels in Aleppo
The AP reports that Assad troops advanced in and around Aleppo on Monday, in a new siege on opposition-held areas of Syria’s largest city. “If Aleppo falls, the Syrian revolution falls,” said one local activist, who uses the name Baraa Halabi, told the wire.
“The troops faced rebels stretched thin by a two-front fight against government forces and Islamic militants encroaching on opposition-held areas. If rebels are driven out of Aleppo, it would be a near-fatal blow to an uprising that began in March 2011 as largely peaceful protests against President Bashar Assad’s rule, but later turned into a full-fledged civil war.
“Aleppo is the last large urban area that Syrian rebels hold after losing territory to government forces over the past year, and it lies close to the border with Turkey, an important friendly supply route for rebels. Raqqa, further east, is held exclusively by Sunni extremists from the Islamic State group.”
Official Says Europe Should Accept More Syrian Refugees
Reuters reports that EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom appealed to the all 28 member states to step up their efforts to resettle Syrians who have fled the conflict, saying Europe “must offer a legal alternative to migrants who risk their life to reach the continent by sea.”
She also said Syria’s neighbors were hosting three million refugees, while Europe as a whole had taken in fewer than 100,000.
“That’s not a lot of people. Today around half of the (EU) countries have said that they would engage in resettlement from Syria. I think all 28 (EU member states) should,” she said, adding that if all EU countries followed the example of Sweden and Germany, which take the most Syrian refugees, “we could at least help 150,000 resettled refugees.”
Syria’s Female Refugees Facing Poverty, Harassment and Isolation
The Guardian reports that women are now the sole providers in 25 percent of all Syrian refugee families, “struggling to provide food and shelter for their children and often facing harassment, humiliation and isolation.”
A new report from UNHCR says that more than 145,000 Syrian families in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan are led by women. The newspaper writes that “Those interviewed for the report, Woman Alone – the Fight for Survival by Syrian Refugee Women, said they lacked resources, jobs, food, housing, protection and security. One in three reported they did not have enough to eat.”
UNHCR chief Antonio Gutierrez says that “For hundreds of thousands of women, escaping their ruined homeland was only the first step in a journey of grinding hardship. They have run out of money, face daily threats to their safety, and are being treated as outcasts for no other crime than losing their men to a vicious war. It’s shameful. They are being humiliated for losing everything.”
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