More than 30 trucks from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent were reportedly bringing food relief from United Nations stores to the town of Urm al-Kabra, near Aleppo, in an area controlled by rebel groups.
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Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings – with unexpected ferocity.
After that, their goal was for Moscow and Washington to begin an unprecedented joint effort to coordinate air strikes on Islamic extremist groups in Syria while grounding Assad’s air force in those areas.
Charities such as Save the Children also accused the government of violating the ceasefire and blocking aid getting through.
“Well, the Syrians didn’t make the deal”, Kerry told reporters in NY on Monday. The head of the centre and several others were badly injured.
Under the terms of the Geneva agreement, the United States was supposed to rein in opposition forces and Moscow was to ensure its ally Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad halt attacks.
They say the raid was halted immediately when information came from Russian Federation that the Syrian military had been hit.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said meanwhile that the terms had not been met for a key aspect of the deal – US-Russia cooperation against jihadists in Syria.
Aid deliveries to besieged areas were a key part of the cessation of hostilities deal brokered by the United States and Russian Federation seven days ago.
The remarks suggested a more downbeat outlook after Kerry had insisted earlier in the day that the cease-fire was holding and humanitarian goods had begun to flow into the Aleppo area after days of delay. “But the point – the important thing is the Russians need to control Assad, who evidently is indiscriminately bombing, including of humanitarian convoys”.
One UN spokesperson said: “We understand a convoy has been hit”.
Humanitarian aid would reach desperate civilians, particularly in devastated eastern Aleppo.
The opposition blamed government warplanes. “Now I can hear the sound of helicopters overhead”.
A statement from the activists said: “Martyrs and wounded among civilians were reported, some of them are still stuck under the rubble, in Aleppo city and its suburbs, due to bombardment and artillery shelling”.
Militants from the Jabhat al-Nusra Front launched a large scale offensive in southwest Aleppo, advancing against the Syrian government forces, the Russian military said in a statement on Monday. Here he says that he will take back all of Syria.
Russian and USA officials met in Geneva today and the International Syria Support Group – the countries backing the Syria peace process – were scheduled to meet tomorrow in NY to assess the ceasefire agreement.
But both the Syrian army and the rebels spoke of returning to the battlefield.
“The Syrian army’s general command saw the cease-fire as an opportunity to end the bloodshed, but armed terrorist groups failed to comply with the terms of the truce”, read a statement carried by the regime’s official SANA news agency. That was to be set up after seven days of reduced violence and sustained aid deliveries to Aleppo and other areas.
Up to 275,000 people remain trapped in that part of the city without food, water, proper shelter or medical care, he added.
The UN’s special representative for Syria expressed outrage about the airstrike, which hit the UN aid convoy west of Aleppo.
Jan Egeland, head of the United Nations humanitarian task force for Syria, tweeted that there were “many killed and injured” in the strike. Washington has called it a mistake.
Even before Monday’s declaration by Syria that the ceasefire was over, and before the attack on the aid convoy, flare-ups of violence were marring its progress.
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The strikes came shortly after Syria’s army declared an end to a week-long ceasefire, blaming rebel groups for its collapse.
