Syria’s Ikhbariya News said three women were killed and 17 injured inside the hospital, located in the Muhafaza neighbourhood.
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Aleppo is Syria’s largest city and has been subject to intense fighting in recent days. Along with a photo he said was taken after the supposed new strike, showing identical damage, he said they “indicate quite clearly that all ostensible “eyewitness accounts” ” about another airstrike were false.
The US and Russian Federation brokered a nationwide cessation of hostilities in February but it has come under severe strain.
“We expect all the parties to the cessation of hostilities to fully abide by the renewed cessation in Aleppo”, Kerry said. “That means the regime and the opposition alike”, he said.
“We look to Russian Federation as a co-chair of the International Syria Support Group to press for the Assad regime’s compliance with this effort, and the United States will do its part with the opposition”, said the USA government in the communique. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the U.S.is “concerned by the continued escalation of violence in and around Aleppo”, while adding that Russian Federation needs to do more to secure a truce.
Moscow and Washington reached a deal last week on a temporary “freeze” in fighting in the coastal province of Latakia and in Eastern Ghouta.
The pair have agreed to boost the number of Geneva-based truce monitors to track violations “24 hours a day, seven days a week”, Kerry said Monday. It did not elaborate and there was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.
“If Assad’s strategy is to somehow think he’s going to just carve out Aleppo and carve out a section of the country, I got news for you and for him – this war doesn’t end”, Kerry said. Government forces were reinforced by allies from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, he said.
The ceasefire in Syria doesn’t include terrorist organizations, including Islamic State (IS, former ISIS, ISIL) and Al-Nusra Front. Volunteer sappers in opposition-held areas of Syria are improvising their approaches to one of the world’s most risky tasks: dismantling cluster munitions, land mines and explosive booby-traps as they work to make battle-torn areas safe for civilians to return. Such dynamics could cause any cease-fire to easily unravel again, particularly with no clear mechanism for control or accountability.
State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement that since this morning, there’s been an “overall decrease in violence” despite “reports of continued fighting in some locations”. He added that “the alternative is truly quite catastrophic, because we could see 400,000 people moving toward the Turkish border”.
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Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier invited French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault and the U.N.’s Staffan de Mistura to a meeting Wednesday at a government guest house in Berlin.
