After months of fighting to encircle its opponents in Aleppo, the Syrian government backed by Russia on Thursday offered safe corridors out for residents and rebels in the northern city’s besieged quarters, underlining its determination to seal off the metropolis and force an eventual surrender by the opposition.
Many residents dismissed the offer, saying it presents them with an impossible choice between a slow death if they stay behind and possible detention if they attempt to leave.
The encirclement of rebel-held eastern Aleppo sets the stage for a drawn-out siege with potentially huge implications for the future of the armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The military continued to consolidate its grip on Thursday, seizing a district on the northern edge of the city.
“If al-Assad shows that he is winning Aleppo, and he’s now also advancing on the rebels in Damascus, it could trigger a more dramatic shift by finally convincing opposition groups that they have lost the war,” said Aron Lund, nonresident associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The announcement on humanitarian corridors was made by Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and was followed by a general amnesty offer by al-Assad for rebels who give up their weapons and surrender to authorities over the next three months.
Rebels and residents of Aleppo said they were deeply skeptical of the offer and there was no sign of people massing to leave the besieged parts of the city.
“I will not leave. I will be the last man in the city,” said Mohammed Zein Khandakani, a 28-year-old resident of the Maadi neighborhood of Aleppo, who volunteers with the city’s medical council. “I can’t imagine ever seeing a member of this regime one more time.”
However, Khandakani, formerly a lawyer who was detained for a month in the early days of the protests against the Syrian government, said he was worried about his family.
A father of two — the youngest a girl of nine months — he said despite the risk of maltreatment and even arrest, he is urging his mother, wife and sister to use the safe passage to leave the city. He said he hopes the Russian role and intense international attention to the humanitarian corridors proposition means the government would abstain from flagrant violations.
Fliers dropped over eastern Aleppo showed supposed corridors leading to government areas, but the media office for the opposition’s civil defense search and rescue group in east Aleppo said no safe corridors had been opened.
Ibrahim Haj, director of the media office in Aleppo, said families would probably send their women and children through the corridors if they were deemed secure enough, but not men.
“Most of the men — everyone here — is wanted by the regime,” Haj said. “So, what amnesty?”
He and other activists reported continued fighting and said there were 25 air raids on eastern Aleppo on Thursday.
For days now, Syrian government forces and allied troops have encircled the main rebel enclave in Aleppo, urging fighters there to surrender. The encirclement set the stage for a prolonged siege that the government hopes will eventually starve out and force the rebels to surrender, a tactic al-Assad’s forces have used elsewhere, including in the central city of Homs.
Homs, with a total population of 200,000, returned almost fully to government control in December last year following a three-year siege.
The UN said Aleppo is now possibly the largest besieged area in Syria, with an estimated 300,000 residents inside. Humanitarian groups have warned of a major catastrophe if the siege continues, while others criticized the offer as insufficient.
UN Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura said he was not consulted on the safe passages offer.
Rights groups said opening safe passages would not avert a catastrophe, and does not give Syrian and Russian forces carte blanche to further blockade the opposition-controlled territory.
“The fact that you provide this option doesn’t mean that the people who stay behind are legitimate military targets,” Human Rights Watch deputy Middle East director Nadim Houry said.
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