INSURGENTS in Syria’s east Aleppo shelled humanitarian corridors during yesterday’s 10-hour truce, injuring two Russian soldiers and a journalist.

The Russian Defence Ministry said mortar rounds hit the north-western route out of the occupied east of the city.

The two soldiers, who were reportedly abiding the Russian-proposed humanitarian pause, were evacuated and treated for their injuries which were not life-threatening.

In a separate incident the militants fired on an aid convoy travelling on the same road, injuring a journalist from Syria’s Al-Ikhbariya TV with shrapnel.

Some 2,000 extremists from the al-Qaida-affiliated Levant Conquest Front (LCF), Nour al-Din al Zinki and Fastaqim factions are holding 40,000-60,000 hostage in the ruins of east Aleppo, refusing a government amnesty for them to leave.

But UN Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura’s spokeswoman Jessy Chahine said he was “against the evacuation of civilians unless it is voluntary.”

Earlier Syrian state TV had shown footage of one of the humanitarian corridors, revealing that civilians had not used the routes to flee Aleppo during the pause.

Meanwhile the LCF and its Western-backed allies Ahrar as-Sham continued the second big push in their attempt to capture west Aleppo, home to 1.5 million people.