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Syrian activists: US-led coalition strikes kill 28 civilians

The city has been divided since 2012, with government forces controlling the western half and rebels holding districts in the east.

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De Mistura also praised a statement from the International Red Cross about the Russian proposal, which said any such corridors should have the “consent of all parties on all sides”.

Kerry – who has spoken twice with Moscow in the past day and met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday in Laos – said cooperation between Moscow and Washington could turn sour if the announcement proves deceitful.

“How do you expect people to walk through a corridor – thousands of them – while there is shelling, bombing, fighting?” he added.

“In this context, humanitarian corridors, which require residents of Aleppo to leave the city, do not represent a credible response to the situation”.

Many residents dismissed the offer, saying it presents them with an impossible choice between a slow death if they stay behind and possible detention if they attempt to leave.

“The ICRC is not a big fan of humanitarian corridors, because it always runs the risk that there is the concept of safe areas, and everything outside those safe areas becomes an area of non-respect for global humanitarian law”. The US-based International Rescue Committee said those left behind in east Aleppo risked starvation and called for a humanitarian pause in fighting.

But only a handful of Aleppo residents trickled out through one passage Friday, while others wanting to flee were turned back by rebels, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also announced shortly after that they had introduced an amnesty for rebel forces who chose to surrender, the official SANA news agency reported.

The TV says fliers have already been dropped on Thursday on rebel-held besieged parts of Aleppo city, urging people to take the government’s offer of humanitarian corridors.

The rebel-held areas are in the east of the city. “The brutal message to our people is – “leave or starve”, HNC member Bassma Kodmani said.

Civil defense volunteers carry a body after digging it out from under the rubble of a building that collapsed following a reported air strike on a rebel-held district in the northern city of Aleppo.

“Our suggestion is to Russian Federation to actually leave the corridors being established at their initiative to us”.

Save the Children said the bomb, from an air strike, hit the entrance to the hospital in rural Idlib province. The group said the hospital was damaged and there were initial reports of casualties.

The other end of the passages, in regime-held territory, were open however, according to the monitor, which relies of a wide network of sources inside Syria for its information.

U.S.-led coalition targeting a village in northern Syria held by the Islamic State group killed at least 28 civilians, including seven children, Syrian activists said Friday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says government forces have taken command of large swaths of Aleppo’s Bani Zeid.

Britain’s BBC news said that two people were killed and three wounded in the strike, quoting the Syria Relief aid agency. It says casualties were reported but it had no immediate figures.

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The town lies 23km northwest of Manbij, a strategic waypoint between Turkey and the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital for ISIL, also known as ISIS.

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