Report: Over 500 Killed in February Fighting Around Aleppo Province

The Syrian military launched an offensive at the start of February, aiming to end a siege on a pair of Shi’ite towns in Aleppo Province. After that victory, they turned their sights to fighting around the city of Aleppo itself.

The move by the Syrian government back into Aleppo seems to have broken years of stalemate and sparked a whole lot of other fights among various rebel factions, and coincided with the Kurdish offensive against territory along the Turkish border.

This sudden new fighting has fueled a new exodus of refugees across Aleppo, numbering in the tens of thousands, and according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, over 500 people have been killed in Aleppo so far this month.

As the various factions hope to block off supply lines from their rivals, UN officials warn that a lot more civilians could also find themselves under sieges, and that ultimately another 150,000 civilians could flee from what’s left of Aleppo.