NEW YORK (Dispatches) – Syria’s UN envoy says al-Qaeda-linked terrorists are preventing civilians from leaving the areas they control in the northwestern city of Aleppo.
Bashar al-Ja’afari made the remarks during a UN General Assembly session, which had been held to address the situation in the beleaguered city and elsewhere across Syria.
The senior Syrian diplomat said Damascus has set up eight passageways for people to leave the city, six for civilians and eight for militants interested in government-offered amnesty or transfer to other areas.
However, the terror outfits of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, and Ahrar al-Sham are blocking the exit routes for civilians, he said.
The terrorists resort to mortar attacks and use civilians as human shields, said Ja’afari, adding that they had executed 14 people earlier on Thursday for encouraging Aleppo’s residents to leave terrorist-controlled areas.
The terrorists have also threatened to burn down the houses of those who choose to flee, according to Ja’afari.
Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, has been divided since 2012 between government forces in the west and foreign-backed terrorists in the east, making it a frontline battleground.
On Thursday, a unilateral Syrian ceasefire went into effect to allow civilians and foreign-sponsored terrorists to leave eastern Aleppo.
However, reports said terrorists fired artillery shells at the humanitarian corridors opened by the army in two Aleppo areas. They accused the government of trying to empty the occupied parts of civilians so it could take over the entire city.
Ja’afari further regretted that Aleppo’s situation "started to become tense in August 2012, when Turkey opened its borders to terrorists and mercenaries, who were being paid by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and trained by the United States on Turkish soil.”
The envoy said Damascus condemned the "wrongful method” with which the country’s crisis was being addressed.
More than 1,700,000 civilians have so far fled the terrorist-held areas to the government-controlled ones in the west, Ja'afari added.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said on Friday terrorists of Fatah al-Sham Front (formerly known as the al-Nusra Front) and Ahrar al-Sham are sabotaging UN efforts, supported by Damascus and Moscow, to deliver humanitarian aid to the eastern districts of Aleppo.
"Both Fatah al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham, along with other organizations cooperating with them, are ultimately sabotaging UN efforts to restore the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Eastern Aleppo that is carried out with the support of Russia and the Syrian government,” Lavrov said, RT reported.
"(They) explicitly shell those routes through which such humanitarian aid can be delivered,” he underlined.
Lavrov said that according to Russian intelligence, all the groups which have been operating in Aleppo are "one way or another under the command” of Fatah al-Sham Front, "which controls eastern Aleppo.”