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United Nations envoy appeals for ceasefire to deliver aid to Aleppo

According to the reports, poisonous gas – most likely chlorine – has been used during battles in the city between Syrian rebel forces and Assad’s military, in which four people were killed.

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Kafr Hamra is adjacent to the northern frontline in the deeply divided city of Aleppo, where government troops have sealed the main route into opposition areas, effectively trapping almost 300,000 residents.

The discussions are holding at a time when there are claims that suspected chlorine gas was dropped alongside barrel bombs on a neighbourhood in Aleppo on Wednesday.

The Observatory, which tracks the civil war in Syria, also reported that government barrel bombs struck the neighborhood.

Activists accused government forces on Wednesday of carrying out an attack using chlorine gas on a rebel-held residential neighbourhood in Aleppo.

The local activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said the strikes also cut the city’s water supply.

“Because of the bombings and the fighting in Aleppo city there are more and more people coming to the hospitals”, Middle East Operations Manager Pablo Marco told Reuters.

He added that a road had been built to an area on the northern outskirts of Aleppo through the Castello shopping center to “ensure safety and organize round-the-clock delivery of food, water, fuel, medicine and other necessities to the city’s west and east”.

The UN is investigating evidence of a toxic gas attack on a rebel-held area of the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Both Syrian warplanes and Russian Federation, which has intervened militarily on Mr Assad’s behalf, have been bombarding opposition areas since rebel forces aligned with jihadi groups to advance on the regime-held side of the city and cut off their supply routes.

Syrian Minister of Defence, Fahd Jassem al-Freij (centre), is pictured during a visit to Syrian regime soldiers in Aleppo, Syria.

Fierce fighting continues, however, meaning a safe corridor for civilians and aid has not yet been established.

The almost monthlong government siege of Syria’s largest city is now on the verge of collapse, after a week of heavy fighting in northern and eastern Aleppo led to the defeat of pro-regime forces by a coalition of Syrian opposition groups.

“Any pause obviously should always be seen and looked at with great interest, because a pause means no fighting, but three hours is not enough”, the UN Syria envoy told reporters.

On the day that alleged attack was reported, at least 33 people, including 18 women and 10 children, were taken to hospital after a chlorine attack in Saraqeb, a town in Idlib province.

The challenge of verifying the use of chemical weapons in a war zone, particularly chlorine has hampered efforts to track their use.

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Under a deal hammered out in 2013 between Russian Federation and the United States following a deadly sarin gas attack in Ghouta, Syria joined the UN Convention against chemical weapons and pledged to hand over all such arms to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for destruction.

Aleppo gas attack probe and UN worries as violence escalates