Egypt Pledges to Help Syria With Evacuation, Aid Coordination in Aleppo

Egypt makes mediation efforts to ensure coordination between the United Nations and the Syrian authorities to evacuate the wounded, and help deliver humanitarian assistance to the areas of war-torn Aleppo, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

CAIRO (Sputnik) — According to Abu Zeid, these steps are being carried out within the overall Egyptian vision of the settlement of the Syrian crisis, which provides for the emergency assistance to the Syrian population, a comprehensive ceasefire in Syria, as well as resumption of talks to reach a political solution to the ongoing crisis.

"Embassy of Egypt in Damascus received the consent of the Syrian government to the Egyptian efforts, now it [the mission] is organizing a visit of Egyptian Charge d'affaires in Damascus Mohamed Tharwat Selim to Aleppo to monitor the evacuation of the wounded and the elderly. Egypt is also currently finalizing its efforts to mediate the delivery of the humanitarian assistance to the areas of Aleppo in need," the Foreign Ministry's Spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said in a statement.

A planned 11-hour pause in airstrikes on terrorist positions came into effect in Aleppo at 05:00 GMT to let civilians leave the city along six corridors, in addition to two corridors opened for militants. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that Russian and Syrian air forces had halted attacks around the besieged city in preparation to Thursday’s humanitarian pause.

Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, with government forces fighting Syrian opposition groups that want to remove President Bashar Assad from power. In parallel, Damascus has to counter various extremist groups, in particular, the Islamic State (IS), which is outlawed in Russia and many other countries.