More than 200 civilians have been killed in air strikes and shelling on government-held and rebel-held areas in the last seven days of fighting in the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo, a monitoring group said on Friday.
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At least one child died and five people were injured in Friday’s strikes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“Favourable conditions for the political process cannot be created whilst the Assad regime’s killing machine continues to wreak death across Syria”, the Coalition said in an online statement.It said the shellings violated the cessation of hostilities agreement brokered by the United States and Russian Federation, which took effect in western parts of the country in February.Obama yesterday pressed for all parties to return to the negotiating table and “reinstate” the internationally-brokered ceasefire – the clearest indication yet that the White House believes the truce has all but disintegrated.
Bebars Mishal, a civil defense chief working in rebel-held areas of Aleppo told Reuters there were a number of air attacks this morning, many of them around mosques in rebel-held areas.
Regime air strikes on rebel-held districts, including Bustan al-Qasr, killed 31 civilians, including three children, said the British-based monitor. On Friday, the humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières said the death toll from a Wednesday attack on its al-Quds hospital had risen to 50.
Also Friday, the Syrian army has declared a temporary truce for the capital, Damascus, its suburbs and the coastal province of Latakia – but not Aleppo.
The attack on the hospital, which is supported by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has been roundly condemned by world leaders, including US Secretary of State John Kerry who said it appeared to be a “deliberate strike”.
The military statement says it will last 24 hours in Damascus and its suburbs and three days in Latakia.
“In short, the violence is soaring back to the levels we saw prior to the cessation of hostilities”.
Syrian opposition activists say government warplanes have launched fresh air raids on rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo.
“MSF categorically condemns this outrageous targeting of yet another medical facility in Syria” said Muskilda Zancada, MSF head of mission, Syria.
The United Nations (UN) warned on Thursday that the situation in the northern Syrian city is becoming “catastrophic” as fighting intensifies and the U.N. envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said that the ceasefire between the two sides was now “barely alive”.
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More than 270,000 people have been killed since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2011.
