{"id":24648,"date":"2016-04-16T03:56:49","date_gmt":"2016-04-16T03:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/thousands-flee-as-fighting-rages-near-syria-s\/"},"modified":"2016-04-16T03:56:40","modified_gmt":"2016-04-16T03:56:40","slug":"thousands-flee-as-fighting-rages-near-syria-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/thousands-flee-as-fighting-rages-near-syria-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands flee as fighting rages near Syria&#8217;s Aleppo city"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{The watchdog accused Turkish border guards of shooting at some of those displaced.}<\/p>\n<p>Fierce fighting raged around Syria\u2019s Aleppo province as a surge in violence made tens of thousands more flee their homes, overshadowing the latest round of peace talks in Geneva.<\/p>\n<p>The clashes on several fronts have put a strain on a fragile ceasefire in place since February 27, and left more than 200 fighters on all sides of the civil war dead in recent days.<\/p>\n<p>The delegation representing President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime arrived in Geneva where UN-brokered indirect talks between representatives of the government and opposition were due to be held.<\/p>\n<p>However, the fighting around Syria\u2019s second city, Aleppo, cast a shadow over efforts to end the five-year war, which has left more than 270,000 people dead and displaced millions.<\/p>\n<p>Troops and militiamen loyal to Assad\u2019s regime have fought Islamic State group fighters to the southeast of Aleppo city this week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.<\/p>\n<p>They also battled jihadists from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front and allied rebels in the flashpoint area of Handarat, north of Aleppo city.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile IS fought rebels near the Turkish border, the Britain-based group added.<\/p>\n<p>On one Aleppo front alone \u2014 pitting rebels against IS \u2014 fighting has forced about 30,000 civilians to flee, according to Human Rights Watch.<br \/>\nThe watchdog accused Turkish border guards of shooting at some of those displaced as they approached the frontier.<\/p>\n<p>LIVE AMMUNITION<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs civilians flee IS fighters, Turkey is responding with live ammunition instead of compassion,\u201d said HRW researcher Gerry Simpson.<br \/>\n\u201cThe whole world is talking about fighting IS, and yet those most at risk of becoming victims of horrific abuses are trapped on the wrong side of a concrete wall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the observatory, fighting between rebels and jihadists near the Turkish border was still going on.<\/p>\n<p>At least 210 fighters on all sides have been killed in the battles around Aleppo since Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Among them were 82 army troops and pro-regime militiamen, 94 members of Al-Nusra Front and allied rebel groups, and 34 IS jihadists, the observatory said.<\/p>\n<p>The heaviest losses came near Al-Eis in the south of Aleppo province where 50 regime troops and loyalist militia fighters were killed along with 61 Al-Nusra and allied fighters.<\/p>\n<p>The latest violence came a day after a senior official in Washington said the United States was concerned about reports of a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive near Aleppo.<\/p>\n<p>European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini also expressed concern about the Aleppo offensive.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-11721 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/709037-01-02.jpg\" alt=\"Syrian opposition body (HCN) delegation (from left) George Sabra, delegation head Asaad al-Zoabi and Chief negotiator, Army of Islam rebel group&#039;s Mohammed Alloush attend a meeting on Syria peace talks with UN Syria envoy at the United Nations Office on April 15, 2016 in Geneva.\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{The watchdog accused Turkish border guards of shooting at some of those displaced.} Fierce fighting raged around Syria\u2019s Aleppo province as a surge in violence made tens of thousands more flee their homes, overshadowing the latest round of peace talks in Geneva. The clashes on several fronts have put a strain on a fragile ceasefire [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2461],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-daily-nation"],"bylines":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24648"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24648"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}