Attempts to evacuate districts of Aleppo stalled yesterday as more fighting rocked the city, which Fr Ziad Hilal said is probably the most dangerous worldwide. Last Saturday, his Jesuit residence was shelled, but luckily no one was killed.
Considered relatively safe during Syria’s five-year-old war, western Aleppo has not had electricity for four months, while most people rely on wells or mobile trucks for water.
Most cannot afford fuel to heat their homes as prices have shot up and are forced to burn wood or old rags to keep warm.
Handmade missiles, gas tank bombs and mortar shells have been targeting heavily populated areas, and last Saturday, the Jesuit centre where Fr Ziad Hilal lives, was bombed at 5.45pm.
In Aleppo, there are two centres – one of which was bombed about two years ago – where JRS, with the support of Aid to the Church in Need, provides educational facilities and humanitarian help. A kitchen service feeds 10,000 people daily, Fr Hilal, from Damascus, told this newspaper last month.
Fr Hilal is based in western Aleppo where he is project director of the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS). He was not at the shelled centre because Mass had been moved to another location that day and the centre was almost unoccupied.
Fortunately, no one was killed, and an eyewitness, whose name was withheld for security reasons, recalls a sudden, violent explosion, followed by a second blast.
“I threw myself on the ground and a third followed. A few minutes of lull, I leave my office and I see rubble everywhere. A fourth explosion and I throw myself on the ground again amid the debris of broken glass. A few more minutes of lull, I get up.
“In total, four shells fell: one 40 metres away, the other on us, the third on a neighbouring building, the fourth 20 metres away. One of the four shells hit our residence between the first and second floors.”
The battle of Aleppo has been raging on for years, and the eyewitness reported that the Syrian regime army has regained areas of which it had lost control since 2012.
“The inhabitants hope that this recovery will remove the rebels, and that we will no longer have shells falling on us.
“The Jesuit centre in Saint Vartan was also attacked. Scarred walls, crucifix machine-gunned and mutilated, but Jesus remained five years on the cross … it has withstood five years of crucifixion, in solidarity with our suffering and our isolation.
“The Church is still there, disfigured, like our city, revealing to us the suffering of God, faced with the savagery of men. The area around Saint Vartan is shocking, nothing but ruins.”
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