THE humanitarian truce in Aleppo was extended yesterday for another 24 hours even as insurgents fired on civilians trying to escape.
The Russian Defence Ministry announced the extension until Saturday evening as the Syrian army opened a ninth humanitarian corridor into the city.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said al-Qaida-affiliated Levant Conquest Front — formerly the Nusra Front — fighters were “refusing to leave the city” despite a government amnesty offer, and were preventing civilians from fleeing.
Three Russian soldiers were wounded by militant fire on Thursday night while attempting to deliver aid to civilians in the eastern Al-Masharqa district.
On Thursday UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura claimed civilians wanted to stay in the terrorist-occupied, heavily bombed east.
Yesterday an anonymous UN official admitted gunmen were stopping people from leaving, but said that was because the government and Russia were impeding aid shipments — which they shot at on Thursday.
Syria’s UN ambassador in Geneva Hussam Edin Aala hit back at those claims, accusing Britain and other powers of arming al-Qaida there.
He insisted the suffering in Aleppo dated to 2012 when the city was “attacked by thousands of terrorists from Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and other terrorist groups.”
Meanwhile Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army militants claimed to have seized several villages from the Kurdish YPG militia north of Aleppo.
The Syrian army warned on Thursday night they would shoot down Turkish jets attempting further air strikes on the YPG, which had killed “150 innocents,” but the raids reportedly continued yesterday.
