Syrians line up to buy bread outside a bakery in the northern town of Azaz, on the border with Turkey, yesterday.
BEIRUT: Hundreds of shops were burning in the ancient covered market in Aleppo yesterday as fighting between rebels and state forces in Syria’s largest city threatened to destroy a Unesco world heritage site.
The uprising-turned-civil war that is now raging across Syria has killed more than 30,000 people, according to activist groups like the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
But beyond the dramatic human cost, many of Syria’s historic treasures have also fallen victim to an 18-month-old conflict that has reduced parts of some cities to ruins.
Rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Al Assad announced a new offensive in Aleppo, Syria’s commercial hub of 2.5 million people, on Thursday, but neither side has appeared to make significant gains.
In Aleppo, activists speaking via Skype said army snipers were making it difficult to approach the Souq Al Madina, the medieval market of vaulted stone alleyways and carved wooden facades in the Old City, once a major tourist attraction.
Videos uploaded to YouTube showed dark black clouds hanging over the city skyline.
Activists said the fire might have been started by shelling and gunfire on Friday and estimated that between 700 and 1,000 shops had been destroyed so far. The accounts were difficult to verify because of government restricts on foreign media.
Aleppo’s Old City is one of several locations in Syria declared world heritage sites by Unesco, the United Nations cultural agency, that are now at risk from the fighting.
Unesco believes five of Syria’s six heritage sites — which also include the ancient desert city of Palmyra, the Crac des Chevaliers crusader fortress and parts of old Damascus — have been affected.
The British-based Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists across Syria, said Assad’s forces and rebels blamed each other for the blaze.
Activists also reported heavy clashes at Bab Antakya, a stone gateway to Aleppo’s Old City, which sits on ancient trade routes and survived a parade of rulers throughout its construction between the 12th and 17th century.
Rebels said they had taken the gate, but some activists said the fighting continued and neither side was truly in control.
“No one is actually making gains here, it is just fighting and more fighting, and terrified people are fleeing,” said an activist contacted by telephone who declined to be identified.
He said in some districts, bodies were lying in the streets and residents would not collect them, fearing snipers.
By noon yesterday, more than 40 people had been killed in fighting across Syria, according to the Observatory.
Syria’s military deadlock is also reflected diplomatically, with foreign powers stalemated over how to act. Western states and Gulf Arab countries back the opposition but most seem reluctant to interfere, while Russia, China and Iran back Assad.
The revolt, which began in March 2011 as peaceful protests, has become an armed insurgency, with rebels holding ground in Aleppo and rural towns of northern Syria.
The fighting has crept closer to Syria’s border zones, and some bullets and rockets have hit neighbouring Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey. Ankara warned it would take action if its territory was again hit — a mortar bomb hit a town on its southeastern frontier on Friday.
Reuters
