Intensified bombings on the Syrian city of Aleppo have left at least two million persons without water, the United Nations said.
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The camp has a strategic importance as it overlooks several rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo, which has become under tight government siege after the Syrian army captured Castello.
Fresh strikes were reported in the city on Saturday, as the Syrian army pressed on with its push to retake rebel areas.
The fall of Handarat to Syrian troops allied with pro-government Palestinian fighters pushed insurgents further away from the government-controlled Castello Road, a main artery leading to rebel-held parts of the city.
The Syrian army said in a statement that the rebels violated the week-long truce over 300 times, adding that the US-led coalition struck positions of the Syrian army during the truce in Deir al-Zour, killing 90 soldiers, which was deemed by Russian Federation as the biggest violation to the truce.
Dozens of people have been reported killed in eastern Aleppo since the army announced the new offensive.
“There are planes in the sky now”, said Ammar al Selmo, the head of the Civil Defence rescue service in the opposition-held east.
Rebel officials said heavy air strikes on Saturday morning hit at least four areas of the opposition-held east, home to more than 250,000 people.
Residents and activists described the use of a missile that produced earthquake-like tremors upon impact and razed buildings right down to the basement level, where many residents desperately seek protection during bombing.
A senior official in an Aleppo based rebel faction, the Levant Front, said the weapons appeared created to bring down entire buildings. “Most of the victims are under the rubble because more than half the civil defence has been forced out of service”.
Government forces captured the rebel-held Palestinian refugee camp of Handarat as airstrikes pounded rebel-held eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, killing 52 people, including 11 children and six women, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Syrian army said it was targeting rebel positions in the city, and denied hitting civilians.
“It is critical for children’s survival that all parties to the conflict stop attacks on water infrastructure, provide access to assess and fix damage to Bab al-Nayrab station, and switch the water back on at the Suleiman al-Halabi station”, it said.
“Depriving children of water puts them at risk of catastrophic outbreaks of water-borne diseases”, Singer warned.
Rebel leader Colonel Fares al-Bayoush said “there are indications and promises” of more weapons, though he only expected “a slight increase”.
We feel the earth trembling and shaking under our feet. It says several of its own headquarters have been targeted. He added the relentless strikes hampered the ability of rescue workers to help civilians caught up in the fighting.
For days, videos and photographs from eastern Aleppo have shown flattened buildings and paramedics pulling bodies from the rubble.
The group says it has just two fire engines left for all of east Aleppo which, like its ambulances, are struggling to move around the city.
Kerry said they had made “a little bit of progress” on resolving their differences over the Syrian crisis. “Aleppo is burning”, said Bahaa al-Halabi, an activist from a besieged rebel-held district.
But Russia’s apparent decision to abandon the peace process this week could reflect a change in that calculus and a view that victory is in reach, at least in the Western cities where the overwhelming majority of Syrians live.
The Syrian army announced overnight that it was launching an operation to recapture the rebel-held sector of the city.
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Syria’s main opposition coalition denounced the “silence of the global community”, saying Damascus and its Russian allies were committing “a crime” in Aleppo.
