With rebel-held areas running out of food and medicine after the only supply route into the city was cut by the army after months of heavy Russian and Syrian aerial bombing, many vulnerable civilians are desperate to leave, while being suspicious of the plan.
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It showed pictures of people, mostly women and children, walking past soldiers and getting onto buses.
Dozens of families are leaving besieged eastern areas of the city of Aleppo along a humanitarian corridor, according to Syrian state media. “However, we won’t allow under any circumstances additional arms supplies from outside to the areas controlled by militants”, he said. The NGO’s last shipment to Aleppo took place in April, when trucks were permitted to deliver 330 cubic meters (11,650 cubic feet) of equipment and provisions.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said that “a number” of civilians entered government territory on Saturday.
Ghaith Yaqout al-Murjan, an activist in Aleppo told Reuters civilians were avoiding the corridors as they were still unsafe: “There are people who want to leave because they can no longer bear the shelling by helicopters, jets, barrel bombs…”
“We’re standing here by the Bustan al-Qasr crossing”.
Since March 2011, Syria has been gripped by militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies.
Aid agencies urged Syria’s regime to end the siege of rebel-held east Aleppo as residents cowered indoors Friday, July 29, afraid to use what some described as “death corridors” to flee the city. Yesterday’s military announcement triggered an uproar from worldwide humanitarian aid NGOs, who warned that starvation for the 250,000 civilians estimated to still be in that part of the city would soon follow. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said there was concern whether Russian Federation was prepared for the plan.
And the White House said it was “sceptical”.
“Imagine the emergency room in any of the field hospitals doesn’t have more than five or six beds, and when responding to a massacre they receive up to 30-40 injured at the same time”, the doctor said in a statement released by the aid group.
“I want to leave, but not to government-held areas”, said Abu Mohamed, a 50-year-old father of four living in Al-Shaar district.
The UN voiced provisional support for the idea, but asked for control of the routes.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said Russian Federation, which has been carrying out air strikes alongside Syrian regime planes, should let the United Nations take charge of the corridors as a reassurance to the beleaguered population.
Observatory’s chief Rami Adurrahman said another 13 people were killed in the strikes but that he could not say if they were Islamic State fighters or civilians.
Philip Luther, director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program, said the corridors were “not a substitute for allowing impartial humanitarian relief for civilians who remain in opposition-held areas of the city or other besieged areas, many of whom will be skeptical about government promises”.
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The report also said some fighters had surrendered to the authorities.
