Fighting persisted in Aleppo on Thursday more than an hour into a three-hour ceasefire announced by Russian Federation, two opposition groups and a witness in the city said, as government forces tried to reverse last week’s opposition gains.
Advertisement
The UN said Russian Federation was considering expanding three-hour pauses in fighting every morning to bring in desperately needed aid.
“If this is truly a step in that direction, we would welcome that”.
United Nations special adviser Jan Egeland said the proposed pause was “not enough” to facilitate the delivery of aid to the estimated two million civilians trapped in the city.
Trucks carrying food were unable to enter the city Thursday because of intense bombardment.
An estimated 1.5 million people live in Aleppo, including about 250,000 in rebel-held districts.
Doctors in the eastern half implored US President Barack Obama on Thursday to protect civilians from repeated atrocities in their city. “On the issue of Daesh, we have made a call to Russian Federation”.
“Despite the horror, we choose to be here”, the letter said.
The doctors said they do not need tears, sympathy or prayers, but to be free from bombings and worldwide action to prevent any future sieges. “Prove that you are the friend of Syrians”.
“With heavy bombing continuing relentlessly in Aleppo especially, hospitals and clinics need to be treated as the sacred life-saving places they are, not as additional bombing targets”, said HRW’s Nadim Houry.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he was “concerned by reports of a new chemical attack. that is said to have claimed four lives and left dozens injured”.
The group, also known as the White Helmets, said it could not independently verify the nature of the gas.
The news website El-Dorar Al-Shamia that is affiliated to the Syrian opposition said that the attack using poisonous gasses on the Zubdiya neighbourhood was not an isolated case and that Russian warplanes “targeted the neighbourhood of Al-Rashideen, the area around the town of Kefarnaha, west Aleppo and the Al-Ramusa area in south Aleppo with phosphorous bombs”. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 24 civilians were killed, along with six others whose affiliation or identities were not immediately confirmed.
Russian Federation confirmed that six Tupolev warplanes carried out air strikes around Raqa, but said it had demolished “a chemical weapons factory in the city’s northwestern outskirts”.
Its defence ministry said the extremist group suffered “significant material damages” in the strikes and that “a large number of fighters have been killed”.
Advertisement
Accusations involving use of chlorine and other poisonous gases are not uncommon in Syria’s civil war, and both sides have denied using them while blaming the other for using them as a weapon of war.
