Scepticism greets Syrian offer of safe passage to besieged Aleppo
CIVILIANS and unarmed rebels will be allowed to leave Aleppo through humanitarian corridors, the Syrian government and its Russian backers said yesterday as they closed in on one of the most important cities in the war.
Leaflets were airdropped over Aleppo declaring that three routes out of the city would allow safe passage for civilians. A fourth would be opened for “armed militants”, whom they said would be granted amnesty.
“In keeping with the Russian president’s instructions, it is planned, along with the Syrian government, to start a major humanitarian operation to provide assistance to Aleppo’s civilian population,” Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said.
Government forces supported by Russian warplanes cut off all roads out of the opposition-held eastern side of Syria’s second city 11 days ago, effectively trapping the remaining 250,000300,000 still living there.
Residents said there had been nothing to eat but rice for a week and supplies would run out by mid-August.
Offers of safe passage are often made in the closing stages of a siege in order to reduce the number of civilians and enemy fighters ahead of an assault. The announcement was met with deep scepticism from rebels and residents, and there was no immediate sign of people massing to leave.
Activists who visited the areas where there were said to be safe routes out yesterday afternoon said they appeared to still be closed. One report, which could not be immediately verified, claimed a man was shot by a sniper as he tried to cross through Bustan alQasr – one of the passages earmarked as safe.
Dr Fatima Mohamad, an obstetrician at the Omar bin Abdulaziz hospital in Aleppo, said most residents were too afraid to leave. “All these passages out are going to the Syrian government,” she said. “The revolutionaries can’t go there, we’d prefer to die rather than go to the bloody regime. If we leave it is death or jail, or death in jail.”
Those remaining in the city have stayed for the past four years despite heavy bombardment and fierce fighting
Mohammad Zain Khandaqani, who lives in Aleppo, said people did not trust that the Syrian government would allow safe passage. “No one has left so far, most people don’t want to abandon the revolution,” he said.
Nadim Houry, the deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said the safe passage offer does not give Syrian and Russian forces carte blanche to further blockade the oppositioncontrolled territory or target it with indiscriminate fire. “It doesn’t mean that the people who stay behind are legitimate military targets,” he said.
Delegates from the US and Russia will meet in Geneva today to discuss the plan for Aleppo. The two powers have already agreed on a pact to work together to strike at extremist groups Jabhat Al-Nusra and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in Syria.
Yesterday the Syrian army captured the Bani Zeid neighbourhood, where there were reports that rebels surrendered and downed their weapons.
‘All these passages out are going to the Syrian government. If we leave it is death or jail, or death in jail’