Aid is seen strewn across the floor in the town of Orum Al-Kubra on the western outskirts of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, the morning after a convoy delivering aid was hit by a deadly air strike.
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“Failing to respect and protect humanitarian workers and structures might have serious repercussions on ongoing humanitarian operations in the country, hence depriving millions of people from aid essential to their survival”, said Peter Maurer, the ICRC President.
United Nations officials said the United Nations and Red Crescent convoy was delivering assistance for 78,000 people in the town of Uram al-Kubra, west of the northern city of Aleppo. The Syrian military, just hours earlier, had declared the week-long truce had failed. “It was certainly not the coalition who struck from the air; it does look like an airstrike”, he said, adding, “the only other entities that fly in Syria are Russian Federation and Syria”.
The U.S. State Department said it’s not hard to conclude who ordered the strike on the convoy.
The Russian military, which is investigating the incident, said that footage from activists at the scene showed damage to the vehicles that did not appear to come from an air strike or other munitions.
The convoy, escorted by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, was among the first to try to deliver humanitarian aid to the rebel-held areas under the cease-fire agreement.
“As an immediate security measure, other convoy movements in Syria have been suspended for the time being pending further assessment of the security situation”, Jens Laerke, U.N. humanitarian aid spokesman, told reporters in Geneva.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said hope for a renewal of the ceasefire was “for now, very weak”, stressing that a truce could only be resumed if “terrorists” halted their fire.
Francois Hollande also told world leaders the Syrian conflict would be remembered as a “disgrace” for the global community if it failed to end the fighting swiftly. It said four civilians were killed in government-held areas.
U. N. Humanitarian Chief Stephen O’Brien called on “all parties to the conflict, once again, to take all necessary measures to protect humanitarian actors, civilians, and civilian infrastructure as required by global humanitarian law”. Laerke called it “a very, very dark day. for humanitarians across the world”.
Witnesses said multiple strikes had hit the convoy as workers were unloading aid, and then hit rescue workers who arrived to help.
While the United States initially said it was still hopeful of extending the truce, U.S. officials acknowledged in the wake of the attack that there might no longer be any agreement left to salvage.
Piles of white bags filled with flour were seen near one of the trucks.
The cause of the attack remains unclear. Both Syrian and Russian aircraft operate over Syria, as well as the US -led coalition that is targeting the Islamic State group.
Eighteen of the convoy’s 31 trucks – which United Nations officials say were clearly marked and were carrying wheat flour, 9 tons of medicine, and clothing for about 78,000 people – were destroyed.
Apart from the 12 killed in the convoy attack, 22 civilians died in attacks Monday across the province, according to the Observatory and Aleppo 24 News.
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Pictures of the convoy published by SARC on Twitter showed that several of the trucks were draped with blue flags from UNICEF, the UN’s agency for children.
