Syrian security personnel occupied roads leading to the Kurdish-majority districts of Aleppo on Wednesday, a day after a truce halted clashes between the army and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Residents of the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh districts were allowed out, but nobody was allowed in, witnesses said.
Syrian Defence Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra on Tuesday said he had agreed to a “comprehensive ceasefire” with the commander of the Kurdish-led SDF, Mazloum Abdi, after some of the most intense fighting between the two sides since the new authorities came to power last year.
Tension has been brewing for days in Aleppo, which is home to tens of thousands of Kurds. The two neighbourhoods have remained under SDF control despite regime change.
“They want to empty the area of its residents, that's why they're not allowing us in,” Mohammed Ahmad, a first-year electronic major at Aleppo University, told The National on Wednesday. He had left his house in Ashrafieh at 9am to attend a course which finished two hours later then tried to return home.
He then spent most of the afternoon trying to return in several ways. One of them was by going through a park that separates the district from the rest of the city, but the entrance was blocked by security forces.
“Go try another way,” a security officer told a crowd gathered at the entrance of the park, Mohammed Al Jali, owner of a car repair shop, said. He added that the situation was “unbelievable” a day after the ceasefire was announced.
Sniper positions
Mr Al Jali said he had left Ashrafieh in the morning to exchange money he carried in a bag with him. One of the roads leading back into the neighbourhood was blocked by mounds of rock and sand, with a heavy presence of security personnel armed with AK-47s.
The developments come amid renewed US efforts to revive a March 10 deal between President Ahmad Al Shara and Mr Abdi that would integrate the SDF into the state. US special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack has also been pushing for the agreement. He met with Mr Al Shara on Tuesday and with Mr Abdi the day before.
Mr Al Shara led Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a now-defunct Al Qaeda splinter group that ousted the regime in December, but has failed to reach an accommodation with many of the country’s religious and ethnic minorities.
One of the personnel manning the roadblock stated “only the Red Crescent can enter”, to bring out humanitarian cases, according to Mr Al Jali.
Another Kurdish man who works at a hotel as a food hall manager said he slept at his work after being unable to return home in the past two days.
On these blocked streets, in a no-man's land separating the government forces from the Asayish, the Kurdish administration's internal security forces, who are present within the two districts, both forces can be seen taking sniper positions at times, but so far have refrained from firing.
