Expressing disappointment that humanitarian actors have not been able to reach eastern Aleppo in Syria, the United Nations humanitarian chief urged all parties to the conflict to facilitate regular and sustained access to the besieged and hard-to-reach areas across the country.
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The U.N. emergency relief coordinator says he is “pained and disappointed” convoys have not reached Aleppo where as many as 275,000 people are in need of food, water and medical aid.
It reported 35 strikes in and around Aleppo since the truce ended.
Rudskoy said that the week-long truce had been violated 302 times and that 63 civilians had been killed.
The report could not be independently verified.
But both the Syrian army and the opposition spoke openly of returning to the battlefield. “I believe that the truce is clinically dead”.
The statement said the military forces have practised high self-restraint, and responded in a few cases when it had to do so to silence the fire from the rebels. The Assad government describes almost all armed groups opposing its rule as “terrorists”.
“This step (ceasefire) was to constitute a real chance to stop the bloodshed”.
It said in a statement that “terrorist groups”, a term the Syrian government uses to refer to all insurgents fighting against it, had failed to commit to any of the provisions of the deal, and had used the ceasefire to rearm whilst violating it 300 times.
Earlier Monday, Russia’s Lieutenant-General Sergei Rudskoi said in a briefing that Damascus had fulfilled its obligations.
Australia also participated in the strikes and the Australian Department of Defence offered its condolences to the families of Syrian soldiers killed or wounded in the incident.
The Obama administration sent its condolences to Syria for an air strike that inadvertently struck Syrian military forces, reported the Associated Press Monday.
Two Danish F-16s were part of a US-led coalition attack that Russian Federation says killed dozens of Syrian military forces, the Danish military has confirmed.
The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, meanwhile voiced outrage at the attack on the aid convoy: “Our outrage at this attack is enormous” de Mistura said in a statement. While the US said the strike was an accident, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was evidence that the USA was ready to back even Islamic State to further its goal of regime change in Syria.
The U.S. military said it would not intentionally hit Syrian troops, and that it came as it was conducting a raid on IS positions.
But Russia said 62 Syrian soldiers were also killed in the attack, which President Assad described as the “latest example of flagrant American aggression against Syrian army positions in the interests of the [Islamic State]”.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a different death toll, saying 90 troops were killed in the strikes.
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Under the terms of their agreement, the USA was supposed to rein in opposition forces and Moscow was to ensure its ally Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad halted attacks.
