A rebel fighter fires towards pro-regime forces during clashes in Sheikh Najar area of the restive Syrian city of Aleppo on February 24, 2014. Syrian troops battled rebels over a strategic Aleppo district that could be key to securing a nearby prison and laying siege to the city's rebel-held east. AFP PHOTO / ALEPPO MEDIA CENTRE / ZEIN AL-RIFAI (Photo credit should read ZEIN AL-RIFAI/AFP/Getty Images)
ZEIN AL-RIFAI/AFP/Getty Images
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Dozens of families have used humanitarian corridors to leave Aleppo, Russia, Syria says
Alliance of Kurdish, Arab forces has captured 40% of Manbij from ISIS, says monitoring group
Syrian rebels launched an offensive to break the Aleppo siege on Sunday
CNN
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Syria and Russia will establish four additional humanitarian corridors into Aleppo, Russian state media reported Sunday, a day after both governments said residents had begunusing the routes to flee the besieged city.
“In addition to the existing corridors, we are organizing four more humanitarian corridors,” head of the Russian reconciliation center in Syria, Lt.-Gen. Sergey Chvarkov said, according to the state-run Sputnik news agency.
Syria and Russia, its key military backer, announced the creation of the three initial corridors on Thursday, after Syrian forces encircled the city and cut off rebel supply lines.
Both governments say the corridors are to allow for the distribution of badly needed food and medical aid to civilians, who have been facing a humanitarian disaster in the devastated city, and to provide residents – along with rebels who choose to surrender – the opportunity to leave.
The Syrian government has declared a general amnesty for rebels who surrender to government authorities within three months. The government dropped leaflets over the city last week with instructions for residents on where to find the corridors and how to approach them.
Syrian government leaflets dropped to the residents of besieged Aleppo.
Karam Al Masri
Sputnik quoted Chvarkov as saying the existing corridors have allowed 169 civilians and 69 militants who had laid down arms to flee.
Syrian state TV showed images of what it said were women and children leaving, along a street lined with damaged buildings.
However, two sources on the ground told CNN they had visited the crossings and seen no people using them, nor any sign that they had been opened.
Meanwhile on Sunday, Syrian rebels launched an offensive to break the Aleppo siege, a member of the political leadership of Ahrar al Sham said in a video statement posted online.
Ahrar al Sham is an Islamist rebel group that is fighting Assad’s army, ISIS and Kurdish forces.
Ahrar al Sham stated that all factions in the Islamist umbrella group Jaish al Fatah would take part in the battle across the 20 kilometer front line.
Witnesses told CNN they have seen an increase in artillery fire and rocket activity near the front lines. Many residents started fires hoping the smoke would obscure the vision of pilots flying overhead, witnesses on the ground said.
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war broke out in 2011 and the country’s economic hub, has been a major battleground in the conflict, with rebel groups holding neighborhoods in the east of the city for years. They include so-called moderate factions such as the Free Syrian Army, as well as various Islamist groups, including those, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, that have been designated terrorist organizations.
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UNRWA/Reuters/Landov
Displaced Syrian residents wait to receive food aid distributed by the UN Relief and Works Agency at the besieged al-Yarmouk camp, south of Damascus, Syria, on January 31, 2014. According to the UN Envoy for Syria, an estimated 400,000 Syrians have been killed since an uprising in March 2011 spiraled into civil war. See how the conflict has unfolded.
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Anti-government protesters demonstrate in Daraa on March 23, 2011. In response to continuing protests, the Syrian government announced several plans to appease citizens.
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Delegates from Arab League member states and Turkey discuss a response to the government's crackdown in Syria on November 16, 2011.
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Supporters of al-Assad celebrate during a referendum vote in Damascus on February 26, 2012. Opposition activists reported at least 55 deaths across the country as Syrians headed to the polls. Analysts and protesters widely described the constitutional referendum as a farce. "Essentially, what (al-Assad's) done here is put a piece of paper that he controls to a vote that he controls so that he can try and maintain control," a US State Department spokeswoman said.
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Syrian refugees walk across a field in Syria before crossing into Turkey on March 14, 2012.
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Rebel fighters with the Free Syrian Army capture a police officer in Aleppo, Syria, who they believed to be pro-regime militiaman on July 31, 2012. Dozens of officers were reportedly killed as rebels seized police stations in the city.
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A Free Syrian Army fighter runs for cover as a Syrian Army tank shell hits a building across the street during clashes in the Salaheddine neighborhood of central Aleppo on August 17, 2012.
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Family members mourn the deaths of their relatives in front of a field hospital in Aleppo on August 21, 2012.
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A Syrian man carrying grocery bags dodges sniper fire in Aleppo as he runs through an alley near a checkpoint manned by the Free Syrian Army on September 14, 2012.
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Free Syrian Army fighters are reflected in a mirror they use to see a Syrian Army post only 50 meters away in Aleppo on September 16, 2012.
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Smoke rises over the streets after a mortar bomb from Syria landed in the Turkish border village of Akcakale on October 3, 2012. Five people were killed. In response, Turkey fired on Syrian targets and its parliament authorized a resolution giving the government permission to deploy soldiers to foreign countries.
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A Syrian rebel walks inside a burnt section of the Umayyad Mosque in Aleppo hours before the Syrian army retook control of the complex on October 14, 2012.
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An Israeli tank crew sits on the Golan Heights overlooking the Syrian village of Breqa on November 6, 2012. Israel fired warning shots toward Syria after a mortar shell hit an Israeli military post. It was the first time Israel fired on Syria across the Golan Heights since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
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Smoke rises in the Hanano and Bustan al-Basha districts in Aleppo as fighting continues through the night on December 1, 2012.
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The bodies of three children are laid out for identification by family members at a makeshift hospital in Aleppo on December 2, 2012. The children were allegedly killed in a mortar shell attack that landed close to a bakery in the city.
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A father reacts after the deaths of two of his children in Aleppo on January 3, 2013.
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Syrians look for survivors amid the rubble of a building targeted by a missile in the al-Mashhad neighborhood of Aleppo on January 7, 2013.
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Rebels launch a missile near the Abu Baker brigade in Al-Bab, Syria, on January 16, 2013.
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A Free Syrian Army fighter fires a rocket-propelled grenade during heavy clashes in Aleppo on April 27, 2014.
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A giant poster of al-Assad is seen in Damascus on May 31, 2014, ahead of the country's presidential elections. He received 88.7% of the vote in the country's first election after the civil war broke out.
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Rebel fighters execute two men on July 25, 2014, in Binnish, Syria. The men were reportedly charged by an Islamic religious court with detonating several car bombs.
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Smoke rises after an airstrike in Aleppo on October 4, 2016.
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Idlib Media Center
This photo, provided by the activist Idlib Media Center, shows dead children after a suspected chemical attack in the rebel-held city of Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017. Dozens of people were killed, according to multiple activist groups. The United States responded a few days later by launching between 50-60 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian government airbase. US officials said the base was home to warplanes that carried out the chemical attack. Syria has repeatedly denied it had anything to do with the attack.
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Bodies lie on the ground in the rebel-held city of Douma, Syria, on April 8, 2018. According to activist groups, helicopters dropped barrel bombs filled with toxic gas on Douma, which has been the focus of a renewed government offensive that launched in mid-February. The Syrian government and its key ally, Russia, vehemently denied involvement and accused rebel groups of fabricating the attack to hinder the army's advances and provoke international military intervention.
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Damascus skies erupt with anti-aircraft fire as the US and its allies launch an attack on Syria's capital early on April 14, 2018. US President Donald Trump announced airstrikes in retaliation for Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons. Trump says the strikes are part of a sustained military response, in coordination with France and the United Kingdom.
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Women and children who fled the Islamic State group's embattled holdout of Baghouz wait in the back of a truck in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, on February 14, 2019.
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Members of the Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the "White Helmets," search the rubble of a collapsed building following an explosion in the town of Jisr al-Shughur on April 24, 2019.
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Turkish-backed Syrian fighters take part in a battle in Syria's northeastern town of Ras al-Ain as Turkey and its allies continue their assault on Kurdish-held border towns in northeastern Syria on October 14, 2019.
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A member of the Syrian Violet Organization carries an injured boy at a makeshift hospital following a regime air strike on a vegetable market in Syria's last major opposition bastion of Idlib on January 15, 2020.
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A Syrian man mourns the death of family members next to the rubble of his house following a reported airstrike on the village of Kafr Nuran, in the northern province of Aleppo, on January 21, 2020.
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Burak Kara/Getty Images
A displaced boy carries a bag of bread as people queue for food distributed by a nonprofit in Idlib on February 19, 2020.
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Members of Syrian Civil Defence and Turkish-backed Syrian forces search for victims in the aftermath of a car bomb explosion near a security checkpoint in the town of Azaz on March 19, 2020.
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Health workers carry the body of a 62-year-old displaced Syrian man who died of Covid-19, to be buried in the town of Salqin, in Idlib province, on September 17, 2020.
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An aerial picture shows Syrians waving the national flag during a gathering in the rebel-held city of Idlib on March 15, 2021, as they mark 10 years since the nationwide anti-government protests that sparked the country's devastating civil war.
Residents describe life under siege
The United Nations has warned of a potential humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo as regime troops, backed by Russian air power, tighten their grip on the ruined city. An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people remain in the besieged rebel-held part of eastern Aleppo.
In addition to the continual bombardment they face, which has seen numerous hospitals struck, residents complain of acute shortages of food, water and medicine.
“Markets are empty of vegetables and all other food products, streets are empty of cars and vehicles because there is no fuel,” an aid organization manager based in Aleppo told CNN Sunday, as bombs continued to pound rebel-held neighborhoods.
He said the shortages had forced his organization to resort to reusing “single-use” medical equipment after attempting to sterilize it.
An emergency responder in Aleppo confirmed to CNN that rebel-held neighborhoods were under aerial bombardment from Russian jets Sunday. Ambulances and other emergency vehicles in the city were out of fuel, he said.
The United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has said that food supplies in rebel-held areas could run out within weeks.
Russia: Aid is ready for fleeing residents
Russia says that it has prepared 14 tons of humanitarian cargo for those who leave the city, with 2.5 tons of food and other essentials already supplied.
But some residents contacted by CNN say they are wary of the government’s promise they will be safe if they leave the rebel-held areas.
The corridors also have been regarded with skepticism by international actors.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggested Friday that the corridor approach could potentially be a “ruse,” telling reporters that it carried “the risk, if it is a ruse, of completely breaking apart the level of cooperation” between the United States and Russia.
However, he said, “if we’re able to work it out … and have a complete understanding of what is happening and then agreement on the way forward, it could actually open up some possibilities.”
De Mistura says introducing such measures should be left to the U.N. and its partners, and has stressed that no one should be forced to leave.
And Amnesty International has questioned whether the corridors will help prevent a humanitarian disaster, saying many residents are unlikely to trust government assurances over their safety.
U.S.-backed force recaptures 40% of city of Manbij
Elsewhere in Syria, thousands of civilians have also fled ISIS-held parts of the northern city of Manbij, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Aleppo, over the past day, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Sunday.
Backed by the air power of the U.S.-led coalition, the alliance of U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab forces – known as the Syrian Democratic Forces – has been engaged in fierce clashes with the Sunni terror group in the city.
The SDF had recaptured about 40% of the city from ISIS as of Sunday, the UK-based monitoring group reported.
U.S. officials describe Manbij as a strategic supply point for ISIS, and the terror group’s principal hub between Raqqa, the capital of its self-declared caliphate, and Turkey.
Clashes are still ongoing with ISIS militants in several other parts of the city, the observatory said.
More than 280,000 Syrians have been killed since fighting began in 2011, and millions have been forced to flee the country.
CNN’s Ghazi Balkiz, Ray Sanchez, Hamdi Alkhshali, Joel Williams, Clarissa Ward, Mahatir Pasha, Richard Roth and Waffa Munayyer contributed to this report.