“We are in principle, and in practice in favour of humanitarian corridors under the right circumstances that allow the protection of civilians”, he added.
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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on July 28 that Moscow and Damascus were beginning a large-scale humanitarian operation in Aleppo.
“In any event, all parties are required and obliged, under long-established and accepted global humanitarian law, to allow safe, unimpeded, impartial and immediate humanitarian access for civilians to leave and for aid to come in”, he said.
Previously the country’s economic hub, Aleppo and its surrounding countryside have suffered some of the worst fighting in the five-year conflict that has killed more than 280,000 people.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said the proposal “has the risk, if it is ruse, of completely breaking apart the level of cooperation”, but also added it could “open up some possibilities” if an agreement on the way forward was reached in US-Russia talks about Syria in the Swiss city of Geneva on Friday.
With airstrikes against critical infrastructure and densely populated areas of Aleppo continuing, the Institute for the Study of War said, the Russian proposal seems more like an effort to “depopulate Aleppo City in preparation for concerted pro-regime ground operations to force the surrender of opposition groups within the city”.
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.
De Mistura said he is seriously concerned about the welfare of the people of Aleppo, which has become a de facto besieged city.
The UN’s special envoy to Syria, Staffan De Mistura, says he was not consulted on Russia’s plan.
“That’s our job. Bringing humanitarian assistance and supplies to civilians, wherever the happen to be, is exactly why the U.N.is there”.
Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, has been divided since 2012 into government and rebel sectors.
A fourth corridor would be established in northern Aleppo to allow for the withdrawal of armed insurgents, the statement said, calling it an exceptional attempt to spare civilians from violence.
He and other activists reported continued fighting and said there were 25 air raids on eastern Aleppo Thursday.
“The people of Aleppo should not be forced to choose between fleeing their homes and remaining under attack in a besieged area”, said IRC’s acting Middle East director Zoe Daniels.
“Around 12 people managed to use the Bustan al-Qasr corridor before rebel groups reinforced security measures and prevented families from approaching the corridors”, said the monitoring group’s head, Rami Abdel Rahman.
The Observatory said the hospital in the rebel-held town of Kafar Takharim was heavily damaged and left barely operational.
Thursday night’s air strikes targeted the town of al-Ghandour, controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) group according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which documents daily human rights abuses in Syria. The encirclement set the stage for a prolonged siege that the government hopes will eventually starve out and force the rebels to surrender, a tactic Assad’s forces have used elsewhere, including in the central city of Homs.
Hamoud Almousa, a founding member of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently activist group, says IS sought retribution from the village for “not defending Islam” when the SDF initially drove out IS earlier this summer.
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Almousa said most of the villagers fled before the extremists retook al-Bouweir but the men who remained were killed.
