On Tuesday the United Nations called for an urgent ceasefire to help more than two million people who are in Aleppo without electricity and running water.
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It called for an “immediate halt to the hostilities and, at a minimum, a two-day weekly humanitarian pause” to allow the city’s crippled water and electrical networks to be repaired.
Syrian rebels on Wednesday managed to bring food into eastern Aleppo for the first time since government forces cut off supply routes to the opposition enclave last month, a monitoring group said.
CAFOD is urging all parties to the Syria conflict to allow the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians trapped in east Aleppo, and for the worldwide community to do more to put in place a ceasefire.
The UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Syria, Yacoub el Hillo, and the UN regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, Kevin Kennedy, said in a statement released on Monday that two million residents of Aleppo are living in fear of besiegement.
Some 2 million people are without vital supplies around Aleppo, according to the UN.
Russia’s defence ministry on Wednesday said it would hold fire around Syria’s ravaged city of Aleppo for three hours each day to allow humanitarian aid in, an initiative the United Nations said is insufficient to meet the city’s needs. “These cuts are coming amid a heat wave, putting children at a grave risk of waterborne diseases”, said Hanaa Singer, UNICEF Representative in Syria.
Experts painted a graphic portrait of barrel bombings, attacks on medical facilities, chemical weapons use and the ongoing suffering inside the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo, shaming the worldwide community for its inaction at an informal Security Council meeting Monday organized by the United States.
Earlier in the day, a military source told Xinhua that up to 142 civilians have been killed in rebel attacks in Aleppo since July 31.
The Syrian government has deployed hundreds of extra fighters in Aleppo in an attempt to reverse opposition gains. “Getting clean water running again can not wait for the fighting to stop”, – UNICEF spokesperson Christophe Boulierac.
The strike comes after eight Hezbollah fighters were reportedly killed in Aleppo on Sunday.
The letter states that since the beginning of the civil war, “countless patients, friends, and colleagues [have] suffered violent, tormented deaths” and the “world has stood by and remarked how “complicated” Syria is, while doing little to protect us”.
In the eastern parts of Aleppo, up to 300,000 people – over a third of them children – are relying on water from wells, which is potentially contaminated by faecal matter and unsafe to drink.
The government completely closed the main road into the rebel-held areas of Aleppo on July 17, effectively cutting off all supplies and exit routes.
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The fighting has included a numerous attacks on medical facilities, which the doctors wrote will wipe out medical services in Aleppo in a month if they continue at the same rate.
