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| Isis advance in Syria: Hospital evacuated as 100,000 threatened by militants' advance on Azaz | Isis advance in Syria: Hospital evacuated as 100,000 threatened by militants' advance on Azaz |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A hospital is being evacuated in Syria as civilians flee a new Isis offensive near the Turkish border. | |
| Militants have seized several towards and villages from rebels and are advancing on the city of Azaz. | Militants have seized several towards and villages from rebels and are advancing on the city of Azaz. |
| Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said it was evacuating medics and patients from the Al Salamah as the Islamists neared. | Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said it was evacuating medics and patients from the Al Salamah as the Islamists neared. |
| It said a basic team would remain to help the ill and wounded and that around 100,000 displaced people living in the rebel enclave were under threat from the Isis offensive. | |
| Pablo Marco, an operations manager at the humanitarian organisation, said: “We are terribly concerned about the fate of our hospital, our patients and for the estimated 100,000 people trapped between the Turkish border and active frontlines. | |
| “For some months the frontlines have been around seven kilometres away from the hospital and now they’re only 3km (2 miles) from Al Salamah town. | |
| “There is nowhere for people to flee as the fighting gets closer.” | |
| In a propaganda statement, Isis claimed to have taken control of seven villages from the Free Syrian Army and “apostate” fighters. | |
| In Kaljibrin, there were reports that militants had publicly executed rebel fighters and their families, including women and children, in a main square. | |
| Isis said it had seized American-made weapons from “US-vetted” groups in the advance, although it was impossible to verify the claim. | |
| The Isis offensive has split rebel-held territory in northern Aleppo Governorate into two, leaving a thin sliver linking the city of Azaz to the Turkish border and town of Marea, bordered on the other side by Kurdish groups. | |
| Syrian rebel factions in the area, which includes the border crossing of Bab al-Salama, have also come under fire from pro-government forces and the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces in recent months. | |
| The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday's advance also effectively cut off a key supply route between Azaz and Marea, another opposition stronghold. | |
| Both Azaz and the Bab al-Salama crossing have been a lifeline for the opposition since the town fell into rebel hands in 2012 but are being threatened by Russian air strikes and fighting. | |
| MSF and other aid organizations warned earlier this month that the humanitarian situation for over 100,000 people trapped in the Azaz rebel-held pocket was critical. | |
| Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy for Syria, said he plans for a resumption of peace talks “as soon as feasible” between the Government and opposition but expects that it will “certainly not” come within the next two to three weeks. | |
| Isis and the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra are excluded from negotiations, which were suspended last month between Bashar al-Assad’s government and other rebels. |