Russian doctors help people returning to freezing Aleppo

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Syria conflict: Ceasefire agreed, backed by Russia and Turkey

The Syrian government and rebel groups have agreed a nationwide ceasefire from midnight local time (22:00 GMT) on Thursday, followed by peace talks.

The deal was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin and confirmed by the Turkish foreign ministry.

Russia and Turkey, which back opposing sides, will act as guarantors.

The rebel High Negotiations Committee (HNC), seen by the UN as the main opposition group, confirmed the deal, which excludes jihadist groups.

The Syrian army said in a statement that so-called Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly the Nusra Front) "and the groups affiliated to them" were not part of the agreement.

Latest updates on Syria ceasefire

Osama Abu Zaid, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a loose alliance of several moderate rebel factions under the HNC, said the deal also did not include the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG).

The YPG, along with other Kurdish militias, controls a large area of northern Syria up the Turkish border. It is regarded by Turkey as a terrorist organisation and an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

However, the ceasefire will take in the rebel-held eastern Ghouta area near Damascus, which had been a sticking-point in negotiations.

The HNC, the umbrella group representing Syria's political and armed opposition factions, said that, because of the rebels' limited resources against government forces and their allies, it was "not possible to continue" the fight.

Earlier this month, Moscow and Ankara negotiated a ceasefire in Syria's second city, Aleppo, that led to tens of thousands of rebel fighters and civilians being evacuated from an enclave besieged by government forces.

UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, welcomed the new deal, saying he hoped it would save lives, improve aid delivery and pave the way for productive peace talks.

Previous ceasefire initiatives this year brokered by the UN, or the US acting with Russia, quickly collapsed.
Astana to host talks

Mr Putin announced in Moscow that three documents had been signed:

An agreement between the Syrian government and the armed opposition on a ceasefire

Measures for overseeing the ceasefire

An agreement to start peace talks

He described the deal as "fragile" but he praised the agreements as the result of the work of Russia's defence and foreign ministries with Moscow's partners in the region.

He added that he agreed with a proposal by the defence ministry to reduce Russia's military presence in Syria but made it clear Moscow would "continue fighting international terrorism and supporting the Syrian government".

Peace talks, to begin within a month of the ceasefire, would be held in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana.

The Kurdish YPG would not take part in the peace talks, the FSA said.

Complications ahead - BBC's Selin Girit in Istanbul

A year ago, no-one would have expected Turkey-Russian relations to get to this level.

Ankara's moving closer to Moscow was bound to affect its policy on Syria. Now they have managed to broker a ceasefire.

However, there seems to be disagreement on which groups are left out.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu mentioned that foreign fighter groups, including Hezbollah, needed to leave Syria as well - which will not sit well with Iran, a major backer of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Whether Ankara is prepared to give up on its long-term goal of ousting Mr Assad could complicate negotiations with Russia.

Turkey's foreign ministry also emphasised it was crucial for all states with influence over the groups in Syria to comply with and support the ceasefire - an obvious call to Washington, among others.

Key rebel groups, including the powerful Ahrar al-Sham and Army of Islam factions, have signed the ceasefire deal.

A spokesman for the FSA said it would abide by the truce but would retaliate against violations by government forces and their allies.



The FSA's Osama Abu Zaid said it had had no direct talks with the Syrian government ahead of the ceasefire deal and still insisted that President Bashar al-Assad would have no place in the future of Syria.

At least 300,000 people are believed to have been killed in fighting that followed the uprising against President Assad in March 2011.

A further four million have fled the country to seek refuge in neighbouring states or Europe.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38460127

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The Syrian army said in a statement that so-called Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly the Nusra Front) "and the groups affiliated to them" were not part of the agreement

Someone please tell me how this is going to work when the bad guys, doing most of the killing and being the reason most coalition members are fighting, are not involved in the ceasefire or the talks

I notice that there is NO mention of American involvement in the ceasefire - must be because the US sponsored Islamic State have not agreed to the ceasefire

Osama Abu Zaid, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a loose alliance of several moderate rebel factions under the HNC, said the deal also did not include the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG).

So the murdering Free Syrian Army rebels are included, even though many of them contain countless non-Syrians, but the Kurdish voice is ignored as always, could be due to the fact that the Krdish leaders themselves are now denying the rights and freedoms of the Kurdish population

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As the battle for Aleppo ended in decisive victory for the Syrian army, Russian medical personnel rushed to provide assistance to sick and weary civilians.

While the battle for the city may be over, Russian doctors in Aleppo are now engaged in a different kind of fight: a fight for the lives, health and well-being of the local civilians.

Working in makeshift tents practically around the clock, with little time between shifts to grab some foot or take a nap, Russian medics at the al-Mahaledzh camp treat about 140 people a day.

Lt. Col. Oleg Guryan, a medical officer stationed at the camp, told Ruptly that most of their patients are people seeking treatment for "purulent diseases."

The first Russian mobile hospitals were deployed to Aleppo in November 30. On December 5 a mortar attack against one of these facilities, carried out by terrorists entrenched in the city, claimed the lives of two Russian nurses, Nadezhda Durachenko and Galina Mikhailova, and injured Col. Vadim Arsentyev, a pediatrician.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2017 ... ssistance/

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Thousands return to ruins of freezing Aleppo - U.N. official

People trickle back even though U.N. doesn't encourage it

Living in single rooms of bombed-out apartments

Aid effort focuses on clinics, bread and water

Thousands of people are starting to return to formerly rebel-held east Aleppo despite freezing weather and destruction "beyond imagination", a top U.N. official told Reuters from the Syrian city.

In the last couple of days around 2,200 families have returned to the Hanano housing district, said Sajjad Malik, country representative in Syria for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"People are coming out to east Aleppo to see their shops, their houses, to see if the building is standing and the house is not that looted ... to see, should they come back," he said in an interview.

But given the appalling conditions, the U.N. is not encouraging people to return.

"It is extremely, bitterly cold here," said Malik. "The houses people are going back to have no windows or doors, no cooking facilities."

Aid is vital to prevent more deaths. The U.N. is helping people to restart their lives in one room of their apartments to start with, he said, giving them mats, sleeping bags and plastic sheets to cover blown-out windows.

BREAD AND WATER

Hanano was one of the first Aleppo neighbourhoods to fall to rebels in 2012, and the first to be retaken by the Syrian government on its way to seizing back full control of the northern city last month - the biggest victory for President Bashar al-Assad in nearly six years of war.

As government forces rapidly advanced, some residents stayed put, tens of thousands fled of their own accord and around 35,000 fighters and civilians were evacuated in late December in convoys organised by the Syrian government.

After months of fierce Syrian and Russian air strikes, reconstruction will take a long time, Malik said, but the immediate priority is to keep people warm and fed. U.N.-supported partners provide hot meals twice a day to 21,000 people, and 40,000 people get baked bread every day.

Over 1.1 million people once again have access to clean water in bottles or through tankers and wells.

Mobile clinics are up and running, and more than 10,000 children have received polio vaccinations. Thousands of children who have not been able to attend school need reintegrating into the education system through remedial classes to rebuild their confidence, Malik said.

There was no register of births, deaths and marriages in the rebel-held sector, so the U.N. is working with the government to issue people with papers. "I met a woman with five children and she was excited that she now has her kids registered as Syrians. She has ID cards and a family book," he said.

Bombing has destroyed hospitals, schools, roads and houses, and damaged the two main water pumping stations. The experienced U.N. official said the level of destruction surpassed anything he had seen in conflict zones like Afghanistan and Somalia.

"Nothing would have prepared us to see the scale of destruction there, it's beyond imagination."

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

http://news.trust.org/item/20170104122731-3tv5b

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Lol, Russians destroyed the houses and now they want to heat them.

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Lol, Russians destroyed the houses and now they want to heat them.

America, Russia and every other country connected to the coalition - including the UK - have spent BILLIONS of DOLLARS bombing cities and towns into oblivion in both Iraq and Syria. Sadly none of them spend money rebuilding that which they have destroyed

Kobane is the worst example of destructive liberation - most of the town was turned into rubble - I remember the photos. Very little has been spent rebuilding it even though large amounts of money have been collect by so-called charitable organizations, very little has been spent on Kobane but a few people are a great deal richer.

Sadly, we all know what happens to the former innocent inhabitants of those towns. Having lost family and friends, homes and business, they are then forced to live in the horrendous freezing wet conditions of refugee camps, many so bad that the refugees risked their lives trying to escape from the treatment they received in Turkey