ALEPPO, Syria -- The Syrian army on Sunday ordered rebels in Aleppo to leave the city or face death as a series of airstrikes on neighboring Idlib province killed at least 50 people, including several children.
Aleppo shook from explosions throughout the day as pro-government forces, including foreign fighters dispatched from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, pounded the city's opposition neighborhoods in the east.
Rebel defenses have buckled after months of siege and waves of airstrikes.
Rebels swept into Aleppo in 2012, the year after a government crackdown against dissent sparked a civil war. The Syrian government's fortunes changed after the Russian air force intervened in September 2015.
Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Samir Suleiman said in Aleppo that rebels who choose to stay will face "inevitable death," adding that government forces will "continue fighting until they restore stability and security to all neighborhoods." He said the army has already retaken more than half the neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo and that special forces would lead the battle in the narrow streets of the city's historic district.
On Sunday, the government forces captured large swaths of the Qaterji, Maysar, and Karm al-Turab neighborhoods, advancing their eastern flank to within a half-mile of the citadel that anchors the center of the city. The citadel has remained under government control throughout the conflict.
The advance also threatens to split the rebels' enclave and isolate the once densely populated al-Shaar neighborhood.
Judy al-Halaby, an activist in the city, said residents began evacuating the area five days ago, with thousands fleeing to government-controlled areas and thousands of others going deeper into rebel territory.
The United Nations estimates that more than 31,000 people have fled their homes since pro-government forces began advancing in east Aleppo about a week ago.
In the Hanano district, which was captured by government forces Nov. 26, hundreds of people were seen returning to their homes, as minivans carried troops and militiamen to the front lines.
For some of the residents, it was their first time seeing their homes in years.
Mohammed Qadra, 58, who left the district four years ago, returned from the government-held western part of the city on Sunday to discover that his home was so badly damaged that it is impossible for him to inhabit.
"I have no money to renovate it now, but I will do so step by step," he said.
Russian or government jets, meanwhile, were thought to be behind several raids in Idlib province on Sunday, including two that struck rural markets and killed dozens of people, activists said.
The Syrian Civil Defense, a first responder group also known as the White Helmets, said 52 civilians were killed in raids across the province.
"The fear was clear on everyone's face. There were limbs and bodies all over the ground," said Ahmad al-Sheikho of the Syrian Civil Defense, who arrived at the Maaret al-Nouman marketplace 10 minutes after it was struck.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group that relies on a network of activists on the ground, said six members of one family died in that attack.
Cemeteries filled
In the past four years, more than 20,000 residents of Aleppo province have been killed, more than 80 percent of them in rebel-held areas, according to the Observatory.
As the death toll mounts, residents of east Aleppo have struggled to find places to bury their dead. The old Aleppo cemetery filled up a year ago, and a new one filled up recently.
Medical officials have secured another plot for the dead. But they said they have no way to dig graves with government troops now crashing into eastern Aleppo.
"We have buried our dead in our gardens for a while," said Zakaria Amino, the deputy head of the eastern Aleppo Local Council. He said that when possible, people take the dead to the forensic authority that operates the morgue and issues death certificates.
But Mohammed Abu Jaafar, the head of the forensic authority, said his department is so overwhelmed that the workers registering the dead pleaded with him not to take any more bodies.
"We have no more room," he said.
The U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator, Stephen O'Brien, pleaded Wednesday for access to eastern Aleppo, home to about 275,000, "before it becomes one giant graveyard."
In some ways, it already has. Bodies have been left in the streets. Ambulances and rescue vehicles can't reach them because they have been targeted or because fuel has run out.
Government airstrikes have knocked out all seven medical facilities in the enclave, including five equipped with trauma and intensive care units. Doctors have scattered, setting up small underground medical sites to avoid detection, but they are able to give only basic care.
A nurse who works in one underground clinic said some of the wounded have died as they waited for medical attention or because of a shortage of blood. The enclave's blood bank was hit and shut down. Some who had surgery could not survive the cold weather, she said.
Abu Jaafar said workers at the makeshift medical sites are afraid the piled bodies will expose the clinics' secret locations. "There are informants and collaborators with the regime everywhere," he said.
Since Saturday, 20 bodies have remained unidentified in Abu Jaafar's morgue after shelling hit people fleeing the government forces' ground advances. Another 70 bodies remain unidentified from airstrikes that preceded the ground assault.
A former regime loyalist who defected to the opposition, Abu Jaafar said he fears the government may regain control of all of Aleppo.
"It is easier for me to have my house collapse over my head and die than to hand myself over to this government," he said.
A Section on 12/05/2016