Aghast at the attack on Monday night, United Nations officials on Tuesday suspended all aid convoys in Syria, describing the bombing as a possible war crime and a cowardly act.
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The convoy was part of a routine interagency dispatch operated by the Syrian Red Crescent.
The air raids that hit an aid convoy near Aleppo killed around 20 people, including a Red Crescent staff member, the humanitarian organisation said Tuesday.
The sit-down, co-hosted by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, comes after the Syrian army declared an end to a week-long ceasefire.
All aid convoys in the area have since been suspended following the attack – which occurred just hours after four US-led airstrikes killed 60 Syrian soldiers at a base near Deir al Zor airport.
Ban hailed the dead aid workers as heroes and said “those who bombed them were cowards” before calling for accountability for crimes committed in the war.
He said it was “a very, very dark day. for humanitarians across the world”, the Associated Press reported.
The bombing was initially blamed on either Russian Federation or Syria’s Assad regime. The U.S. -Russia peace deal was meant to allow the delivery of aid to the northern Syrian town, which had become isolated after being surrounded by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
SARC chief Abdulrahman Attar said the organisation was “totally devastated by the deaths of so many people”, including Barakat, whom he described as “a committed and fearless member of our family”.
United Nations special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said the group would meet again in NY on Friday.
The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group in Syria, said Russia’s air forces and government warplanes dropped 25 bombs, damaging some 20 trucks and destroying the Red Crescent warehouse in Uram al-Kubra. The Kremlin has denied responsibility for the strike.
USA officials, however, told CNN that only a Russian warplane could have struck the convoy.
The International Red Cross called it a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”, and Save The Children described it as “devastating”.
The attack on Monday night killed 20 civilians and prompted the United Nations to suspend all aid convoys in Syria.
On Monday, a U.S. State Department spokesman said the United States was “outraged” by reports that a humanitarian aid convoy was bombed near Aleppo, Syria, killing 12, adding that Washington will reassess future cooperation with Russian Federation.
165-a-07-(U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, addressing U.N. General Assembly)-“depravity sinks lower”-U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says yesterday’s airstrike on a humanitarian aid convoy in Syria was “sickening, savage and apparently deliberate”. The U.S. has limited its airstrikes to ISIS and ultimately wants to see Syrian President Bashar Assad leave office.
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U.S. officials appeared to be holding out hope that they could negotiate a new truce deal with the Russians.
