“We once again add our voice in full support of the latest United Nations appeals for a 48-hour humanitarian break in the fighting to allow United Nations agencies to provide humanitarian assistance to Syrian people and to fix the electricity and water networks”.
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Rebels breached the Syrian government siege on opposition neighborhoods in Aleppo on Saturday, opening a corridor in the south and marking a major military breakthrough, but observers said civilians still don’t have a safe route out because of intense airstrikes and shelling in the area.
Washington’s United Nations envoy warned Monday there will be no quick victory in the battle for Syria’s second city of Aleppo and voiced alarm over the fate of civilians caught up in the fighting.
Up to 275,000 civilians in eastern Aleppo have been cut off from humanitarian aid since July, with shortages of basic commodities, including food, leading to rationing and soaring prices, UNHCR said in a statement.
Hassan al-Eshra, a fighter in the Jaysh al-Islam armed group, said they and other rebel groups were still in control of the flash point neighbourhood of Ramouseh in Aleppo on Tuesday evening, despite government forces attempts to recapture it.
It called for an immediate humanitarian pause in fighting to allow vital repairs to be made.
The officials – Yacoub El Hillo and Kevin Kennedy – also said that the targeting of hospitals and clinics “continues unabated, seriously jeopardizing the health and welfare of all citizens of Aleppo”.
Churkin said the United States and Russian Federation were “very practically” discussing in Geneva how aid could be delivered to Aleppo and that Moscow supported a 48-hour pause in fighting, but that such a truce “does not apply to terrorists”.
Aleppo has been divided between a rebel-held east and regime-controlled west since fighting erupted in the city in mid-2012.
Castello Road, the last remaining access route to the opposition-held part of the city, was sealed off by Syrian government forces last month.
Sahloul then showed slides showing women and child victims, one of them a child he said was injured in a chlorine gas attack.
“These cuts are coming amid a heat wave, putting children in Aleppo at a grave risk of waterborne diseases”, Boulierac said.
Safronkov clarified that there is a feeling that some states have no desire or willingness or ability to put an end to terrorists in Syria or either separate them from the so-called “moderate opposition”, which is being hided behind crying over the humanitarian situation in Aleppo.
In western Aleppo, aid groups have been delivering emergency water to an estimated 325,000 people.
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“The big battle has not started yet”, Abdulrahim told AFP.
