The UN Security Council (UNSC) meets in NY on Sunday to discuss the escalating violence in Syria’s city of Aleppo.
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The U.S, Britain, and France sought Sunday’s meeting, as pro-government forces continued their intense bombardment of Aleppo.
Syrian government forces seized ground from rebels north of Aleppo on Saturday, tightening their siege on the city’s opposition-held east as it came under fierce air strikes in a major offensive by the Russian-backed army.
A weeklong ceasefire agreed between the United States and Russian Federation ended and efforts to revive the truce failed.
Syria’s foreign minister meanwhile said Saturday that his government was confident of “victory” with support from “true friends” including Russia, Iran, and Lebanon’s Shiah militant group Hezbollah.
Last night, residents said cluster bombs rained down on eastern parts of the city, where an estimated 250,000 people are living under a government siege.
“The burden is on Russian Federation to prove it is willing and able to take extraordinary steps to salvage diplomatic efforts”, said the group, which included the foreign ministers of France, Italy, Germany, Britain, the United States and the high representative of the European Union.
That same day, an aid convoy was hit by an air strike that USA officials have said was carried out by Russian planes, although Moscow has denied responsibility.
With people inside the Nusra Front-controlled half of Aleppo reporting the heaviest airstrikes they’ve seen in months of fighting, Syrian officials are being quoted in the nation’s state media as saying that the airstrikes are a preparatory move to set the stage for a full-scale ground invasion.
At least 62 soldiers were said to have been killed in the U.S. operation. It was brokered by Russian Federation, which supports the Syrian regime, and the US, which supports opposition fighters. A member of the city’s forensic team, Mohammed Abu Jaafar, said he had documented 54 deaths since late Thursday, including many women and children.
“We will continue to defend our people in Aleppo and our existence”.
“We were home when a missile crashed into our road”, said one resident of the Bab al-Nayrab district who gave his name as Nizar.
A Syrian man carries the body of an infant retrieved from under the rubble of a building following a reported airstrike on September 23, 2016, on the al-Muasalat area in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of contacts inside Syria, said earlier in the day that 213 civilians have been killed by airstrikes and shelling on opposition areas in and around Aleppo since a U.S.
The attack has drawn on ordnance more destructive than anything previously used against the area and many buildings have been destroyed, residents say.
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More than 300,000 people have been killed and over half the country displaced since the war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
