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Monitor Calls Syrian Regime's 'Humanitarian Corridor' Nonexistent

Nisan Ahmado

   The Syrian government has not opened an actual "humanitarian corridor"
   for civilians in Syria's Idlib province, the last stronghold of the
   rebel groups, a U.K.-based organization told VOA Thursday.
   The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which isdocumenting human
   rights violations in Syria, said that the regime's announcement earlier
   Thursday about a "humanitarian corridor" for civilians was false, and
   that there were no civilians left in the specified area; most have
   already left because ofconstant shelling byregime forces.
   "This corridor is placed by the Russians and the Syrian regime for
   media purposes to say that civilians are fleeing toward
   regime-controlled areas," Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the
   observatory, told VOA.

   Nearly 800,000 displaced
   Abdulrahman added that airstrikes by the Russia and Syrian regimes had
   destroyed most areas in the northern Hama and southern Idlib
   countryside andhad displaced almost 800,000 people to the border region
   between Syria and Turkey.
   The Syrian government said civilians could use the corridor to move
   from rebel-held areas to government-held areas and newly captured
   territories in the northern Hama governorate.
   "To mitigate the suffering of civilians the Syrian government is
   opening a humanitarian corridor in the Soran area in northern Hama
   countryside under the protection of the Syrian Arab Army to help
   civilians exit terrorist-controlled areas in northern Hama and southern
   Idlib," the Syrian State News Agencysaid, quoting a statement by the
   country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
   The Syrian regime calls all rebel groups "terrorists."
   The observatory's Abdulrahman said, however, that no civilians would
   return to Syrian regime-controlled territories because they do not
   trust the regime and there are fears of retribution by regime forces.

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