THousands to leave Aleppo if plan holds
- Albanian Shqip
- Amharic አማርኛ
- Arabic العربية
- Bengali বাংলা
- Bosnian B/H/S
- Bulgarian Български
- Chinese 中文
- Croatian Hrvatski
- Dari دری
- English English
- French Français
- German Deutsch
- Greek Ελληνικά
- Hausa Hausa
- Hindi हिन्दी
- Indonesian Bahasa Indonesia
SYRIA
Thousands to leave Aleppo if plan holds
A fresh bid to evacuate rebels and civilians is underway in Aleppo, after Russia's Vladimir Putin ordered the military to prepare a humanitarian corridor. Pro-regime forces fired at a rebel convoy, an activist claims.
The rebels will be transported towards Idlib through a specially set up corridor, using 20 buses and 10 ambulances, Russia's defense ministry said on Thursday. The Syrian government has guarantied safety to all combatants who want to leave the city, they added.
"On the order of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian ceasefire monitoring center is preparing the evacuation of the remaining rebels and members of their families from the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, in cooperation with Syrian authorities."
Representatives of the International Red Cross Committee would transport the wounded rebels in ambulances, with Russian officials coordinating the effort, the statement said. Russia would also use drones to monitor the evacuation.
Syrian state television reported that some 4,000 rebels and their families were to be transported out of the city.
Several wounded while riding the ambulance
While witnesses from the scene confirmed that evacuation vehicles were standing by, others said that one of the ambulances came under fire while trying to leave Aleppo.
"The convoy was shot at by regime forces and we have three injured, one of them from civil defense," ambulance crew member Ahmed Sweid told the pro-opposition Orient TV. "They were brought back to besieged areas."
A spokesman for the White Helmets rescue team, Ibrahim al Hajj, also reported gunfire.
"As our teams were clearing the way in front of the ambulances in the Ramousseh crossing, we came under fire," he told dpa.
A similar bid to evacuate the civilians fell through on Wednesday when fighting restarted.
dj/msh (AFP, dpa, Interfax)


Comments