Evacuation of East Aleppo Building Affirms Risks of Indirect Damage from Prior Bombardment

The Aleppo City Council demolished a five-storey residential building in the east Aleppo Masaken Hanano neighbourhood on February 23 after evacuating residents. The building displayed cracks and was at risk of collapse, indicating the risks to housing, land, and property wrought by indirect damage of aerial bombardments in areas that were formerly under opposition control.

The demolished Arouset Hanano Building was home to 15 families. Most of them owned the apartments they lived in, while others were tenants.

The city council’s public safety committee had inspected the building and compiled a technical report detailing cracks in both the external and internal walls on all storeys, as well as depressions in some of those walls, a council source told The Syria Report.

Based on the findings of the report, all occupants of the building were evacuated, the source added. The roads surrounding the building were closed in cooperation with the Hanano police. Afterwards, the building was completely demolished in accordance with procedures recommended by the committee and in cooperation with the Military Housing Establishment, a construction company affiliated with the Ministry of Defence. The city council said that, with the help of the neighbourhood’s mukhtar, it had secured alternative housing for the evacuated residents.

However, evacuated residents who spoke with The Syria Report tell a different story. According to them, residents had submitted an appeal to the city council in early 2021 informing officials of the large cracks in the building. Council-affiliated engineers inspected Arouset Hanano at the time and said that the building’s foundations were fine and there was no danger of collapse. A resident said, however, that the cracks only increased since then, with more appearing in recent months.

A local correspondent for The Syria Report was unable to confirm official statements saying that a technical committee had inspected the building prior to its evacuation. Residents’ accounts suggest it wasn’t until after evacuating the residents of the building that the committee inspected the building and decided to demolish it.

Hanano police reportedly used loudspeakers late at night on February 22-23 to call on residents to evacuate the building quickly, at risk of seeing it collapse with them inside. Frightened residents complied and exited to the public plaza near the building. A police patrol then shut the main doors of the building and barred entry after confirming that everyone had evacuated.

One former resident told The Syria Report that people were unable to take their belongings out of the building and instead went outside in their pajamas. In fact, most residents had not brought their own deeds with them.

So far, the city council’s statement about having secured alternative housing for the evacuees have not come to fruition. Though the council suggested letting the families stay in a nearby youth housing complex, most of the former building residents are still living with relatives in adjacent neighbourhoods.

The Arouset Hanano Building was never directly bombed. However, it is located between a number of other residential buildings that were partially destroyed by Russian and regime airstrikes during the period of opposition control of east Aleppo in 2013-2016.

Previous bombardments, including seismic bombs and thermobaric bombs, on some residential areas, caused indirect damage even on buildings that had not been directly hit or destroyed. Some Russian bombs designed to penetrate concrete fortifications pose a great danger to buildings, as they destabilise the ground soil and other surfaces. This damage is often invisible, though it harms the foundations of homes. Such damage appears much later in the form of cracked walls or collapsed columns. The damages accumulate, and only worsen as sewage water infiltrates the building foundations.

Since regime forces retook east Aleppo in 2016, there have been no actual repairs to infrastructure in Masaken Hanano, including to the sewage, water, and electrical networks, according to local sources.