Arab League slams Aleppo evacuations via ‘safe corridors’

By Khaled Ibrahim

CAIRO (AA) - Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Abul-Gheit has criticized attempts to empty Syria’s northern city of Aleppo from its residents through "safe passages", which were recently announced by Russia.

In a Sunday statement, Abul-Gheit said he feels “disturbed by attempts to empty Aleppo from its population through the so-called safe exit passages”.

International law “stipulates the necessity to deliver aid to the population inside besieged or affected areas, not to evacuate them”, he said.

Russia, a major ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said that three routes will be open for civilians and unarmed opposition fighters and a fourth for armed fighters to leave Aleppo.

The UN estimates that nearly 250,000 civilians are under siege in opposition-held eastern neighborhoods in Aleppo and that food and water supplies will run out in two weeks.

“It is critical that the security of any such corridors is guaranteed by all parties and that people are able to use them voluntarily,” Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien said. “No one can be forced to flee, by any specific route or to any particular location.”

On Saturday, the Syrian opposition said that anti-regime fighters have broken a government siege on opposition-held areas in Aleppo.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to the UN.

The Syrian Center for Policy Research puts the death toll from the six-year conflict at more than 470,000 people.