GENEVA — The UN special envoy for Syria on Friday urged Russia to leave the creation of humanitarian corridors around Aleppo to the United Nations and its partners, issuing a gentle snub to Moscow, which had made the proposal a day earlier as pro-government troops tightened their encirclement of rebel-held parts of the northern Syrian city.
Rights groups and civilians trapped in opposition-held neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo reacted critically to Russia's plan, saying it does not guarantee safe passage or give residents a choice of where they flee to.
Some residents fear the proposed corridors are intended to restore government control over parts of the city that have been in rebel hands since 2012.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said he was not consulted on the proposal, which was first announced Thursday by the Russian defense ministry.
"That's our job," de Mistura said of the corridors plan at a press conference in Geneva. He expressed support "in principle" for humanitarian corridors but said it must be "under the right circumstances."
"How do you expect people to walk through a corridor — thousands of them — while there is shelling, bombing, fighting?" de Mistura said.
He said he is awaiting clarification from Russian authorities about the plan, noting the urgent situation in the city, wracked by devastating violence in recent months.
"The clock is ticking for the Aleppo population," he said.
The UN says Aleppo is now possibly the largest besieged area in Syria, with an estimated 300,000 residents trapped inside.
Robert Mardini, Middle East director for the International Committee for the Red Cross, said those who choose to stay in Aleppo must be protected and that all parties must allow humanitarian agencies to reach them.
"Humanitarian corridors need to be well and carefully planned, and have to be implemented with the consent of parties on all sides," Mardini said. He said he had no indication that all involved groups had agreed to the plan.
With air strikes on Aleppo continuing, the Russian proposal seems more like an effort to "depopulate Aleppo City in preparation for concerted pro-regime ground operations to force the surrender of opposition groups within the city," the Institute for the Study of War said in a brief.
Late night air strikes in the city killed at least six people, the activist-run Aleppo Media Center said Friday.
Osama Abo Elezz, a general surgeon from Aleppo who was stranded in Turkey because of the siege, said the idea of allowing people to evacuate the city "offers a service to the regime and the Russians, and forces people to go to areas they don't want to go to."
He said that if the UN allows residents to travel safely to other opposition held-areas, this could reassure people that it is safe to leave and would reduce casualty numbers.
There were no reports of civilians using the corridors on Friday.
Rebel fighters were forbidding people from using the Bustan al-Qasr crossing, in the north of the city, "out of fear for their safety," according to Khaled Khatib, a volunteer for the Civil Defense search-and-rescue brigade. He said civilians who leave the city risk being shot by government snipers or being detained because of their opposition sympathies.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes in Kafr Takhareem village in Idlib hit a hospital and a center for civil defense volunteers. The group said the hospital was damaged and there were initial reports of casualties. It said the hospital was no longer operational.
The Observatory said a militant was believed to have been killed in the attack. Syrian state TV said government warplanes carried out an air strike in the same area, also claiming it killed a senior militant without naming him.
Amnesty International said the aerial attack "appears to be part of a despicable pattern of unlawful attacks deliberately targeting medical facilities," which can amount to a war crime.
In other violence, activists said a US-led coalition airstrike targeting a village in northern Syria held by the Daesh group killed 28 civilians, including seven children.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said coalition airstrikes hit the Daesh-held village of Al-Ghandour late Thursday. It said another 13 people were killed in the strikes, but that it was unclear if they were Daesh fighters or civilians.
The international coalition had no immediate comment on the casualty figures. The bombings came a week after airstrikes, also blamed by Syrian activists on US aircraft, killed at least 56 civilians in Daesh-held territory in northern Syria.
Al-Ghandour is 24 kilometers (15 miles) northwest of the town of Manbij, a key hub in the extremist group's Syria network and a supply route to Daesh's de facto capital of Raqqa.
The Manbij area has seen extensive battles between Daesh extremists and US-backed Kurdish-led fighters, who have been advancing under the cover of airstrikes by the US-led coalition. The town is encircled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Activists said that Daesh militants recaptured the nearby village of Al-Bouweir on Thursday and killed 24 civilians.
Hamoud Almousa, a founding member of activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, said Daesh sought retribution from the village for "not defending Islam" when the SDF initially drove out Daesh earlier this summer.
