Cut off by ISIL advance, residents stranded in Syria's Aleppo

Hundreds of thousands of Aleppo residents are stranded and prices for basic goods are soaring after a jihadist advance cut the sole route to regime-held areas of Syria's second city.
 
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) last week severed a road south of the city that formed part of the only remaining way out for residents of the government-held west of Aleppo.
 
With the route cut, the cost of everything from tomatoes to petrol has skyrocketed before the eyes of frustrated Aleppans.
 
"Within five days it has gotten to the point of madness," Salaheddin, 45, a real estate agent from the Saif al-Dawla neighbourhood, told AFP by telephone.
 
"A kilo of tomatoes today goes for between 900 and 1,000 Syrian pounds (around $3), seven times more than before," the father-of-four added.
 
"There are hardly any fruits and vegetables in the city, and there are no cars in the streets because the petrol stations are closed."  

Once Syria's economic hub, Aleppo has been ravaged by war and divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east since shortly after fighting there began in mid-2012.
 
The main Aleppo-Damascus highway out of the city has been cut by rebels since then, but last year regime troops opened another route running through the towns of Safireh and Khanasser to government-controlled Hama and Homs.
 
Last week an IS advance severed the route south of Khanasser, and on Oct. 27 ISIL forces also pushed into the outskirts of Safireh on the road.
         
The advances have stranded some in Aleppo, like 30-year-old Ahmed Rami, who moved from the city to Egypt with his family three years ago but was back visiting friends and family when the road...