Syrian civilians begin leaving rebel-held parts of Aleppo

BEIRUT — Syrian state media is reporting that dozens of families have started leaving besieged rebel-held neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo after the government opened safe corridors for civilians and fighters who want to leave.

State TV showed dozens of women and children arriving at the Salaheddine neighborhood.

State news agency SANA said civilians later boarded buses and were taken to shelters set up by the government on the western side of Aleppo.

SANA said some fighters came forward to government forces where they handed over their weapons and surrendered to authorities.

Syria’s President Bashar Assad has offered an amnesty to rebels who lay down their arms and surrender over the next three months.

The government completely closed the main road into the rebel-held parts of Aleppo on July 17.

On Friday, the UN special envoy for Syria urged Russia to leave the creation of humanitarian corridors around Aleppo to the United Nations and its partners, issuing a gentle snub to Moscow, which had made the proposal a day earlier as pro-government troops tightened their encirclement of rebel-held parts of the northern Syrian city.

Rights groups and civilians trapped in opposition-held neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo have reacted critically to Russia’s plan, saying it does not guarantee safe passage or give residents a choice of where they flee to. Some residents fear the proposed corridors are intended to restore government control over parts of the city that have been in rebel hands since 2012.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said he was not consulted on the proposal, which was first announced Thursday by the Russian defense ministry.

“That’s our job,” de Mistura said of the corridors plan at a press conference in Geneva. He expressed support “in principle” for humanitarian corridors but said it must be “under the right circumstances.”

“How do you expect people to walk through a corridor — thousands of them — while there is shelling, bombing, fighting?” de Mistura said.

“The clock is ticking for the Aleppo population,” he said. The UN says Aleppo is now possibly the largest besieged area in Syria, with an estimated 300,000 residents trapped inside.

Robert Mardini, Middle East director for the International Committee for the Red Cross, said those who choose to stay in Aleppo must be protected and that all parties must allow humanitarian agencies to reach them.

“Humanitarian corridors need to be well and carefully planned, and have to be implemented with the consent of parties on all sides,” Mardini said. He said he had no indication that all involved groups had agreed to the plan.

With airstrikes on Aleppo continuing, 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 Institute for the Study of War said in a brief.

On Thursday airstrikes in the city killed at least six people, the activist-run Aleppo Media Center said Friday.

Osama Abo Elezz, a general surgeon from Aleppo who was stranded in Turkey because of the siege, said the humanitarian corridor proposal serves the interests of the Syrian government and their Russian allies and “forces people to go to areas they don’t want to go to.”

He said that if the UN allows residents to travel safely to other opposition held-areas, this could reassure people that it is safe to leave, reducing casualty numbers.

Also on Friday, in neighboring Idlib province, the charity Save the Children said a maternity hospital it supports in the opposition-held area had been hit with three airstrikes. One struck the entrance, killing two men, said AbdulKarim Ekzayez, health coordinator at Save the Children International.

In other violence, activists said a US-led coalition airstrike targeting a village in northern Syria held by the Islamic State group killed 28 civilians, including seven children.

The international coalition had no immediate comment on the casualty figures. The bombings came a week after airstrikes, also blamed by Syrian activists on US aircraft, killed at least 56 civilians in IS-held territory in northern Syria.