Death toll in Aleppo building collapse rises to 16

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A five-storied building collapsed in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday and killed at least 16 people under the rubble, Syrian state media reported, with the collapse taking place in a Kurdish-controlled neighborhood. 

The building collapse in Aleppo’s poverty-stricken and predominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood led to the deaths of eleven people, including a child, and injured two more, SANA said, adding that the reason behind the collapse “is due to water leakage into the foundations of the building.”  

SANA then raised the death toll to 16 several hours later, adding that four people had been rescued from under the rubble with search operations going well into the night. 

Sheikh Maqsoud is controlled by the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and together with Ashrafiya, houses some 18,000 families, including IDPs from Afrin after its occupation by Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian factions. 

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that the victims of the building collapse were all IDPs from Afrin. 

SOHR added that most of the building’s 23 people are still stuck under the rubble, while also noting that the building collapsed just after midnight. 

Efforts to rescue those trapped under the rubble by civil defense and firefighting teams are ongoing, according to SANA. 

The city of Aleppo – Syria’s second largest - is one of the areas most affected by Syria’s brutal civil war that broke out in 2011, as various rebel factions, including jihadists, and regime forces tussled for control over the city. Many of its buildings lie in ruin and disrepair.
Last September, a building collapse in Aleppo killed 10 people, including three people, according to AFP.