Russia, Syria will extend halt on air strikes to allow evacuation

The Russian military said Tuesday the halt of Russian and Syrian air strikes, now in its seventh day on besieged eastern Aleppo, will continue and humanitarian corridors will remain open, even as the Syrian army has unleashed a new offensive on the rebel-held neighborhoods.

Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said Tuesday that Russian and Syrian warplanes have stayed 6 miles away from Aleppo for a week.

“The moratorium on Russian and Syrian air strikes on the city will be extended,” he said.

Last week, Russia also declared a three-day break in fighting intended to allow the evacuation of both militants and civilians from Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern section. The rebels rejected the Russian offer, citing a lack of security guarantees for the evacuees. The planned evacuation of civilians also failed.

Rudskoi accused the militants of preventing civilians and rebels willing to leave Aleppo from exiting.

While the Syrian army has resumed its offensive, Rudskoi said six humanitarian corridors have remained open and new breaks in fighting could be negotiated to evacuate civilians. He added that the Russian military and local authorities helped clear 48 women and children from eastern Aleppo the previous evening.

Those evacuations could not be independently confirmed. The UN has estimated 275,000 people are trapped by the Syrian government’s siege of eastern Aleppo.

Fighting resumed in Aleppo over the weekend, with pro-government forces mounting several assaults along the city’s front lines after the three-day pause last week. The attacks have been accompanied by Russian air strikes on the outskirts.

But in contrast to the sweeping bombardment that devastated eastern Aleppo before the pause, clashes this week have been largely confined to the front lines, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A spokesman for the local Civil Defense search-and-rescue group said air strikes on residential districts have decreased since last Tuesday, when the Russian and Syrian militaries announced they would open safe corridors for civilians and militants out of the east. The spokesman, Ibrahim al-Haj, noted that shelling has not let up.