AP, Damascus :
Syria’s Foreign Ministry says a “humanitarian corridor” has been opened so that civilians in a besieged, rebel-held area in the north of Hama province can leave.
The ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the corridor was opened in the village of Soran, on the southern edge of the rebel-held area, which Syrian troops have laid siege on the day before.
The besieged area is home to tens of thousands of civilians, as well as insurgents and Turkish troops based in one observation post. Since a deal with Russia last year, Turkey has maintained 12 such posts in and around Idlib province.
The recent rapid advance by the Syrian army in the country’s northwestern region marks a major blow for insurgents in their last remaining stronghold in Idlib.
The Syrian government on Friday opened a new corridor for rebels and civilians who want to leave the besieged eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, a move that’s part of a Russia-announced pause in the fighting and which the rebels in the city have already dismissed.
Residents in eastern Aleppo have said many won’t go since there are no guarantees that the evacuees won’t be arrested by government forces
Even as the corridor opened along Aleppo’s main artery to the north, the Castello Road, intense clashes and shelling erupted in the Jobar neighborhood in the capital of Damascus, activists and residents said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were casualties both among the rebels and the government forces.
The pan-Arab Al- Mayadeen TV aired live footage from the Castello Road showing bulldozers that had opened the road. Buses and ambulances were parked by the roadside, waiting to take evacuees.
The pause in Aleppo fighting was announced by Russia to allow for the evacuation of civilians and fighters, as well as the wounded. Rebels have rejected the offer, saying it isn’t serious.
Before the pause, Aleppo’s besieged districts were subjected to relentless Syrian and Russian airstrikes for weeks.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told an emergency meeting of the U.N. General Assembly that nearly 500 people have been killed and almost 2,000 injured since the Syrian government launched its offensive in eastern Aleppo on Sept. 23.
By midday Friday, no evacuations were seen along the Aleppo corridor.
“No one has left the city so far,” said Mohammed Abu Rajab, who works at an eastern Aleppo hospital that was repeatedly hit over the past weeks, knocking it out of service. “People are worried they might be detained. There are no guarantees.”
