Rebeldes y ejército acuerdan evacuación de Aleppo

Los rebeldes y el Ejército sirio pactan la evacuación de Alepo

Rusia asegura que la tregua permitirá la salida de los insurgentes en la madrugada del miércoles

Juan Carlos Sanz - El País

Cuando la victoria del régimen era más que segura, un portavoz de los rebeldes sirios ha anunciado este martes un acuerdo entre Rusia y Turquía para evacuar a los insurgentes y civiles atrapados en el este de Alepo durante un alto el fuego. La salida de la población civil y de los enfermos y heridos se producirá en primer lugar, según esta fuente citada por las agencias internacionales de noticias, y los combatientes podrán abandonar después la ciudad con sus armas ligeras en dirección a zonas rurales próximas o de la provincia de Idlib bajo control de la oposición. El Ejército sirio precisó a Reuters que la salida de los insurrectos se produciría a partir de las cinco de la madrugada hora local (las cuatro, hora peninsular española).


Un hombre evacua a un niño enfermo desde el este de Alepo. ABDALRHMAN ISMAIL (REUTERS) / VÍDEO: REUTERS-QUALITY

Las armas callaron la noche del martes en Alepo después de más de cuatro años de hostilidades. Durante la tregua los rebeldes se dirigirán, según lo acordado, a zonas rurales próximas o a la provincia de Idlib, bajo control de la oposición. El embajador ruso ante la ONU, Vitali Churkin, dijo poco antes de que comenzara una sesión especial del Consejo de Seguridad sobre la situación en Siria que el pacto había sido suscrito con el objetivo de “permitir la salida ordenada de los insurrectos”. “Los civiles podrán permanecer en Alepo sin temor a represalias”, agregó. El diplomático ruso también confirmó el cese de hostilidades y que el Ejército había tomado el control de toda la ciudad.


La representante de Estados Unidos ante la ONU, Samantha Power, reclamó a su vez la presencia de “observadores internacionales imparciales” en Alepo para supervisar la evacuación y “garantizar la seguridad de los civiles”, informa France Presse. En su intervención ante el Consejo de Seguridad, la embajadora advirtió de que la población del este de la ciudad se resiste a abandonar sus casas “por temor a morir por disparos de las tropas o de sus aliados en las calles o a acabar en los gulags de El Asad”.

Durante los últimos meses, el régimen y los rebeldes ya han alcanzado pactos similares en al menos seis ocasiones en zonas asediadas cercanas a Damasco. Los compromisos se han cumplido hasta ahora sin que se hayan producido violaciones de sus términos. Mediante la llamada fórmula de “reconciliación”, el Gobierno se hace con el control de un bastión rebelde que le obliga a movilizar una parte de sus tropas. A cambio, permite el repliegue de los milicianos de la insurgencia, que deben renunciar a sus armas pesadas, y de sus familias hacia zonas aún dominadas por la oposición. Hasta ahora, sin embargo, no se había suscrito un acuerdo de evacuación que afectara a tan alto número de rebeldes y civiles.

Naciones Unidas había alertado también este martes ante un trágico desenlace de la batalla final en Alepo tras las denuncias de crímenes de guerra cometidos por el Ejército en su avance sobre los insurrectos. Milicias iraquíes aliadas de las fuerzas gubernamentales han ejecutado a 82 civiles, entre ellos 11 mujeres y 13 niños, a sangre fría en sus propias casas, según afirmó en Ginebra el portavoz de la Oficina de Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos, Rupert Colville, informa Efe. El Comité Internacional de la Cruz Roja ha apelado al derecho de guerra para poder poner a salvo a la población cercada. Las imágenes de muerte y destrucción que llegan desde Alepo no tienen parangón en tiempos recientes. "Hay un completo colapso de la humanidad de los contendientes", advirtió el portavoz de la ONU.

Miles de partidarios del presidente Bachar el Asad se echaron a la calle en Alepo durante la madrugada de este martes para celebrar la victoria sobre los rebeldes, antes aun de que se haya consumado. Una fuerza insurgente con apenas 8.000 combatientes resiste a la desesperada en el frente del río que da nombre a la ciudad del norte de Siria. Solo controlan ya el 2% de los distritos que estaban en manos de la oposición desde 2012, cuando la urbe quedó escindida por la guerra. Unos 50.000 civiles permanecen atrapados a su lado bajo los bombardeos aéreos rusos y sirios y el intenso fuego de las tropas gubernamentales y de sus aliados chiíes de Irán, Líbano e Irak.

Los contactos que mantenían negociadores estadounidenses y rusos en Ginebrapara alcanzar una tregua humanitaria no han dado resultado. Los representantes de Moscú parecen haber frenado el acuerdo ante el rápido avance de sus aliados del régimen sirio. La mediación de Naciones Unidas tampoco ha surtido efecto esta vez. En uno de sus últimos comunicados antes de dejar el cargo, el secretario general de la ONU, Ban Ki-moon ha expresado su preocupación por “los informes no verificados de atrocidades cometidas contra gran número de civiles, incluidos mujeres y niños, en Alepo”. Fuentes cercanas a la oposición habían informado poco antes de la ejecución de más 180 personas por las fuerzas gubernamentales tras la salida de los rebeldes de varios sectores del este de la ciudad.

El coordinador de la ayuda humanitaria internacional a Siria, Jan Egeland, lo expresó de manera más directa a través de Twitter: “Los gobiernos de Rusia y Siria son responsables de las atrocidades que están cometiendo ahora algunas de las milicias victoriosas”. Aludía al movimiento Al Nuyabá iraquí, integrado por combatientes chiíes en las filas del Ejército y a otros grupos afines. "La gente está siendo ejecutada en sus casas, pero también en las calles cuando intentan huir", dijo este martes el portavoz de la Oficina de Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos "Exigimos un cese inmediato de los combates para poder realizar las evacuaciones médicas", enfatizó Colville. La ONU aún no ha podido trasladar desde el este a unos 500 enfermos y heridos graves que precisan atención urgente desde hace casi una semana.

“La situación es muy crítica… los militares han tomado muchas zonas y ahora estamos contra la pared”, reconocía a Associated Press un portavoz de la defensa civil en Alepo desde el último reducto insurgente en Alepo oriental. Las fuerzas de la oposición se mantienen aún un par de distritos en su poder. Carecen por completo de suministros de munición y víveres. De los 250.000 habitantes contabilizados en el inicio del asedio al este de la ciudad, el pasado mes de julio, unas cuatro quintas partes se han visto desplazados por la batalla. Cuando la guerra se encamina hacia su sexto año, el presidente El Asad se dispone a culminar su mayor victoria al expulsar a la oposición de su último gran bastión urbano.

En su empeño por aplastar la rebelión en la que fue capital económica del país, el presidente sirio no ha reparado en esfuerzos militares. Tras el envío de refuerzos a Alepo, la histórica Palmira pudo quedar desguarnecida ante una ofensiva del Estado Islámico, cuyos yihadistas han vuelto a tomar la ciudad y sus emblemáticas ruinas grecorromanas. Tampoco parece haber tenido en cuenta el sufrimiento de la población al lanzar una de las mayores ofensivas de la guerra sobre una zona densamente poblada.

Incluso Cruz Roja ha salido por un momento de su tradicional silencio para exigir a las partes en conflicto que “hagan todo lo posible para proteger a los civiles cuyas vidas están en peligro y que no tienen adónde ir”. En una tajante invocación al derecho de guerra ante el peligro de que se produzca una hecatombe en el asalto final a la rebelión, el Comité Internacional se ha ofrecido en las últimas horas a “supervisar un acuerdo que proteja a los civiles”. “Este acuerdo debe producirse ya”, advierte el instituto humanitario internacional.

Aleppo a punto de caer

The fall of Aleppo to Bashar al-Assad’s soldiers seems imminent

The West and the Sunni Muslim world are impotent in the face of Russian support for the dictator

The Economist



WHEN rebel forces surged into the city of Aleppo, then Syria’s largest, in the summer of 2012, they hoped to establish an alternative seat of power that could rival the government’s in the capital, Damascus. But those hopes quickly faded as the operation to seize the city stalled. The rebels could only capture half of Aleppo, splitting the city in two. A lethal stalemate ensued.

The rebel’s hopes of ever breaking the deadlock are now dead. In July, forces loyal to the Syrian government cut the last remaining road into the east, imposing a siege that has slowly strangled life there. Russian and Syrian warplanes have relentlessly bombed hospitals, schools and marketplaces, crippling civilian infrastructure. With the east on its knees, the regime launched a devastating ground offensive on November 15th to drive rebel forces out of the city.

Since then, the rebels have lost about three-quarters of their enclave, their last big urban stronghold anywhere in the country. Their defence of the city has crumbled faster than many expected. The Old City, whose winding alleyways were supposed to be well defended, fell quickly this week as pro-Syrian forces, including Shia militias from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, crashed through rebel lines on December 7th. Cornered by pro-government forces, defeat is inevitable.

After four years of grinding urban combat that has killed thousands of civilians and destroyed large parts of the ancient city, the rebels face a stark choice: die fighting or surrender the enclave and hope to fight elsewhere. In public, rebel fighters and opposition politicians remain belligerent, vowing to fight to the last man rather than surrender to a government they despise. They have called for a five-day ceasefire to evacuate civilians and hundreds of wounded before discussing the future of the city, but fighting continues.

In private rebel officials have been meeting Russian diplomats in Turkey to discuss a full withdrawal from Aleppo. With Ankara mediating, the rebels have been offered two choices: they can either head south to the rebel-controlled city of Idlib, taking only light weapons with them, or they can head north with heavier weapons to join other rebel units fighting alongside Turkish troops against Islamic State and Kurdish forces.

Similar deals in recent months have seen rebel fighters evacuate other besieged areas. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, says diplomats and military experts from America and Russia will meet in Geneva over the weekend to flesh out the details of the rebel’s exit from Aleppo. Without a deal, civilian deaths will rapidly mount, as people are squeezed into an ever smaller space. Russia and the Syrian government have repeatedly said they will continue to bomb Aleppo until rebel forces withdraw.

The rebels remain deeply suspicious of a regime that has routinely detained, tortured and executed those it accuses of helping “terrorists”, including doctors and teachers. The UN says that hundreds of men have already gone missing, having fled into government-held territory with tens of thousands of others desperate to escape the fighting. “Given the terrible record of arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances, we are of course deeply concerned about the fate of these individuals,” a UN spokesman on human rights said on December 9th.

Hundreds of activists, aid workers, councillors, rescue workers and doctors who have received support from the West remain trapped among the 100,000 or so civilians left in the east. The White Helmets, an organisation that pulls the dead and wounded from the rubble after air strikes, has given up and requested the immediate evacuation of its workers. “If we are not evacuated, our volunteers face torture and execution in the regime’s detention centres,” the group said in a statement. “We have good reason to fear for our lives.” In a sign of how close the rebel enclave is to collapse, the White Helmets have begun to destroy their rescue equipment to prevent it falling into the regime’s hands.

While talks over the fate of the city continue, conditions inside the shrinking rebel enclave have rapidly deteriorated. Doctors there say they can only carry out basic first aid. Aid workers from the Red Cross operating in areas recently captured by the regime have found dead bodies trapped under the rubble and orphans who haven’t eaten for two days. Bread is in short supply.

As the rebel enclave crumbles, hopes that President Bashar al-Assad will seek to negotiate an end to the broader conflict appear dimmer than ever. Mr Assad has repeatedly vowed to recapture the entire country. While large chunks of Syria remain outside his authority, the fall of Aleppo would give the president control over all the country’s major population centres and move him one step closer to achieving his aim. “Even if we finish in Aleppo, we will carry on with the war against them,” he said this week.

The West and the Sunni Muslim world remain paralysed, unable or unwilling to help the civilian population or the rebel factions they support. Russia and China this week again vetoed a UN Security Council demand for a ceasefire. With Barack Obama, soon to leave office, showing no inclination to intervene, the loss of Aleppo is imminent.

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Capturan a un japonés en Alepo y Japón entra en la crisis de rehenes

A broken man living on dreams pulls Japan into Islamic State hostage drama
BY TEPPEI KASAI AND ANTONI SLODKOWSKI
REUTERS

When Haruna Yukawa was captured in Syria earlier this month, a video apparently released by his captors showed them pressing the Japanese man to answer questions friends say he had struggled with for years: Who are you? Why are you here?

In fact, Yukawa, 42, had first traveled to Aleppo four months earlier on what amounted to a hardship course in self-discovery, according to people who know him and his account.

Changes in Yukawa’s life in suburban Tokyo had been fast and disorienting. Over the past decade, he had lost his wife to lung cancer, lost a business and his house to bankruptcy and been forced to live in a public park for almost a month, according to Yukawa’s father and an online journal he maintained.

The hard times led to soul searching. By his own account, he had changed his name to the feminine-sounding Haruna, attempted to kill himself by cutting off his genitals and came to believe he was the reincarnation of a cross-dressing Manchu princess who had spied for Japan in World War II.

By late 2013, Yukawa had also begun a flirtation with Japan’s extreme right-wing politics and cultivated a new persona as a self-styled security consultant, according to his Facebook page and blog posts, though he never did any work as a consultant.

He borrowed money to travel to Syria and dreamed of providing security to big Japanese companies in conflict areas like the coast of Somalia. The Syrian civil war was a new start — and his last chance to find success in life, he told friends and family. Later this year, he planned to head to Somalia “where the danger factor will be amped up.”

“He felt his life had reached its limit,” said Yukawa’s father, Shoichi, 74.

Yukawa’s capture by fighters believed to be with Islamic State has pulled Japan into a scramble by various governments to free dozens of foreigners held hostage in Iraq and Syria. The incident marks the first hostage situation for the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe since January 2013, when 10 Japanese were killed by Islamist militants at a gas complex in Algeria.

The Foreign Ministry has declined to identify the captured person or to comment on reports. “We are doing our best to gather information,” a spokeswoman told Reuters.

The picture of Yukawa that emerges from his writing and the accounts of his father and people who had met him in Japan and in Syria is at odds with the tough image he tried to cultivate in video posts from Syria, wearing a black T-shirt and fatigues.

“He was a very friendly, gentle guy. I hosted him at my house for five days,” said Fadi Qarmesh, who met and spent time with Yukawa in Irbil, northern Iraq, in June. Qarmesh showed pictures from that time of Yukawa holding a girl on his shoulders.

Two months earlier, Yukawa had been in Syria and was stopped and briefly detained for questioning by fighters from the Free Syrian Army and he befriended an Asian member of the group, according to Kenji Goto, a Japanese journalist who met Yukawa then. Reuters could not verify this aspect of the account.

In Syria, Yukawa said he became particularly close to a part-Korean, part-Japanese fighter who had been born in Yugoslavia. Over time, Goto said, the FSA fighters took a liking to him, sharing meals and introducing him to their families in refugee camps. He was also given an Arabic nickname.

For his part, Yukawa spoke of wanting to bring badly needed medicine and shoes to Syrian hospitals, and developed an interest in Islam, according to his father and Yukawa’s blog.

After his first visit to Syria in April, Yukawa had a short stay back in Japan before returning to the Middle East, first to Iraq with Goto in June to observe the veteran reporter and learn how to work in a conflict zone and then to Syria again in late July after traveling through Turkey.

Although he had never learned to handle a weapon and described himself as a “very gentle” person, Yukawa portrayed himself online as a soldier of fortune. A visit to the Tokyo address of his paper company, Private Military Company, revealed a building with numerous small, unmarked offices. The firm was set up for a range of businesses, including handling pet goods, according to a company registry.

In effect, it existed only on the Internet.

In video blogs shot from Syria and loaded to the company website, Yukawa showed himself awkwardly firing an AK-47 in Aleppo.

“My bodyguards are five minutes away so I keep this for protection,” he said in one posting, picking up an assault rifle to show the camera.

But it was his gentle personality that helped Yukawa win over FSA rebels, said Goto, who first met Yukawa in Aleppo in April.

“Yukawa has this soft, nonthreatening approach that makes people trust him and puts them at ease,” Goto said.

In his online journal, Yukawa talked about how he and the Asian FSA fighter talked until three in the morning.

“The friendship between the two was a big factor in Yukawa forming a bond with the other soldiers,” Goto said.

In a blog post from October, Yukawa said his cheerfulness was something he learned from being bullied as a child.

“I would pretend to be happy even if I felt lonely or in pain so that others couldn’t read my mind,” Yukawa said. “Hiding my true feelings became my second nature. It also came in handy in business later.”

Yukawa’s road to Aleppo started in a sleepy suburb of Chiba, about an hour’s drive east of Tokyo. After graduating from high school, Yukawa, then still known as Masayuki, started a military surplus store selling helmets, belts and other equipment.

But Yukawa’s store failed around 2005, leaving him in debt, his father said. Around 2008, Yukawa described an attempt to kill himself by cutting off his genitals, an act he likened to the ritual suicide of a samurai.

“I thought if I failed I would live as a woman and leave the rest to destiny.”

Yukawa was saved by the intervention of his wife, who rushed him to a hospital. She died about two years later, according to Yukawa’s father, who said he was forced to sell an apartment he had bought for the couple to pay off his son’s debts.

Yukawa did not return to his father’s house until last year. When he came home again, he looked different, his father said. With rounder cheeks and long brown hair, he told his father that he had consulted a fortune-teller and decided to change his name from the masculine Masayuki to Haruna.

Over the next few months, Yukawa attended events of the Japanese nationalist group Gambare Nippon (Stand Firm, Japan), which has made several trips to the islands at the heart of a territorial dispute between China and Japan. The group wants Japan to stand up to China and the United States and promotes a return to what it calls Japan’s traditional values, including reverence for the Emperor.

Yukawa posted photos posing with Toshio Tamogami, a former Japanese Air Self-Defense Force chief of staff who was sacked in 2008 for saying Japan was not the aggressor in World War II. Yukawa also persuaded a local leader of the nationalist group, Nobuo Kimoto, 70, to become an adviser to his company, Kimoto said.

Yukawa was looking forward to his final, solo trip to Syria.

“It seems like the Free Syrian Army soldiers are all waiting for me. I’m very happy and I too want to quickly meet up with them,” he said in a blog post from June. “I want to devote the rest of my life to others and save many people. I want to make my mark on history one more time.”

On Aug. 14, the fighters with Yukawa were overrun by the Islamic State militant group. Amid the fighting, Yukawa suffered a leg injury and was captured, Goto said, citing information he had been given by local contacts. At the time, Goto was already back in Japan.

In a YouTube video uploaded by an unidentified person this month of an interrogation that followed Yukawa’s capture, he can be seen lying on the sand, his face bleeding as he is questioned by a group of unidentified men. Yukawa tells them his name. The men press him on why he has a gun.

“You thief? Why you have gun? You kill soldier?” one of the men says.

In the exchange, Yukawa tells them he is a photographer and “half doctor.”

“I am no soldier,” Yukawa says.

Japan Times

Foto del día: Un francotirador en Alepo

Anuncian la muerte del periodista Yves Debay en Alepo

La crisis en Siria se cobra la vida de uno de los más famosos corresponsales de guerra

En 2012, Ives Debay posa junto a un miembro de las fuerzas francesas desplegadas en Afganistán (Foto:  amicale8rpima)

Fuentes de la oposición siria anunciaron la  muerte en Alepo del reconocido periodista y fotógrafo belga Yves Debay, durante los combates que sostienen fuerzas rebeldes y del régimen de Bashar al Assad por el control de la capital económica del país.

No se difundieron mayores detalles sobre la forma en que murió Debay, pero por una fotografía recibida por la redacción de este blog puede verse que el corresponsal presenta una lesión en la cabeza.

Credencial de Debay hallada hoy entre sus pertenencias

Con la muerte de Ives Debay desaparece uno de los testigos privilegiados de la historia de los conflictos armados de la segunda mitad del siglo XX - primero como soldado y luego como periodista- que supo plasmar su experiencia en diversas publicaciones de defensa ("Raids", "Assaut", "Defensa", etc.) y en libros especializados, siempre tratando de descubrir lo que había más allá de las versiones oficiales de la historia.

Descanse en paz.