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Dozens of families have left the besieged and battered opposition-held parts of the divided city of Aleppo through a “humanitarian corridor”, according to Syrian state media.
U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura wants a deal as soon as possible so he can restart peace talks within a month and aid flows can resume.
De Mistura says he is awaiting clarification from Russian authorities about that plan.
SANA also said on Saturday that “armed men from eastern neighbourhoods of Aleppo” turned themselves over to army soldiers in Salaheddin district, without specifying a number, or giving further details.
“How can you expect people to want to walk through a corridor, thousands of them, while there is shelling, bombing, fighting”.
No aid has entered east Aleppo for weeks and global agencies have warned that food stocks will run out in three weeks, leaving the population at risk of starvation.
The UN says around 250,000 people have been trapped in Aleppo’s eastern districts since July 17 when pro-regime forces surrounded the area. “But humanitarian corridors need to be well and carefully planned, and have to be implemented with the consent of parties on all sides”.
The Syrian opposition, however, said the corridors were a government ploy to recapture all of Aleppo, calling it a euphemism for forced displacement of the inhabitants, which it said would be a war crime.
The civilians boarded buses and were taken to temporary shelters, Sana said. “The brutal message to our people is: leave or starve”.
“The regime uses massive, indiscriminate force to brutalise civilians to force them to kneel or reject the rebel groups”, he added. “Some fear prosecution, or have relatives who have been involved in some acts of violence against the government”.
According to Tasnim dispatches, the first batch of civilians, including a huge number of women and children, left Aleppo from the eastern neighborhoods of the city.
Syrian state television showed groups of people, mostly women, gathered in a government-controlled area of the city.
Rights groups have said that government and Russian warplanes have repeatedly targeted medical facilities, a charge both deny.
The US has suggested the plan may be an attempt to force the evacuation of civilians and the surrender of rebel groups in the city.
Many Aleppo neighborhoods have come under fire for 80 consecutive days, with more than 6,000 people – mainly civilians – killed or injured.
The global coalition had no immediate comment on the casualty figures reported by the Observatory. The village is located some 10 kilometers northwest of Manbij, a key waypoint between the Turkish border and the IS de facto capital of Raqa city.
But Assad and his Russian allies are unlikely to accept the re-branding as a reason to halt military operations that have put the Syrian leader in the strongest position on the battlefield for years.
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It also reported that ISIS has executed 24 civilians in a village close to Manbij.
