Civilians cautiously return to Aleppo neighborhoods after the Syrian army secures areas hit by the conflict with SDF.Aleppo, Syria – Spent bullet shell casings litter the classrooms and corridors of Qassem Amin school in Aleppo’s Ashrafieh neighbourhood. Desks barricade the stairwells; glass from shattered windows crunches underfoot.The school’s playground turned into a battleground last week, as it sat on the front line of fierce fighting between fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Syrian government forces.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listSDF snipers had commandeered the top floor of the school five months earlier, while classes continued below, school staff explained.“It was very wrong,” said the school’s head teacher, Ouafa Zein al-Dein, “especially for the children”.“We never interacted with them, never even spoke to them,” Zein al-Dein said of the SDF fighters. “I never let anyone near them.”On January 6, the day fighting started, the school’s pupils had just sat down for exams. They never finished them. When Zein al-Dein heard the first explosions, she quickly sent the children home. Bullet casings and shattered glass were left behind after the fighting between the SDF and the Syrian government in Aleppo’s Qassem Amin school [Bernard Smith/Al Jazeera]SDF strongholdsAt least 155,000 people fled Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud, the predominantly Kurdish Aleppo neighbourhoods where the fighting took place.The areas had been controlled by the SDF for 10 years.Last March, the SDF agreed to merge with the Syrian army after a meeting between the group’s leader, Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani), and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. It was part of a broader deal to b …
