United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said that the movements of all aid convoys in Syria had been suspended as an “immediate security measure” after the raid.
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Spokesman Jens Laerke of OCHA says the temporary suspension of the aid deliveries would hold pending a review of the security situation in Syria.
The Syrian army announced Monday the end of the Russian-U.S. brokered truce in Syria, without talking about possible extension, according to the state news agency SANA.
A humanitarian convoy last reached the town in July, the ICRC said.
Seven days after the agreement was reached by Russian Federation, which backs Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the US, which backs anti-Assad rebels, the regime blamed the truce’s collapse on the rebels, and unilaterally declared that the cease-fire is over.
Secretary of State John Kerry scrambled Monday to try to salvage Syria’s fractured week-old truce after the Syrian military announced it was over amid numerous violations, including an attack on an aid convoy, and apparent Russian unwillingness to press Damascus on the point.
Both Syria and Russian Federation denied they were behind the raid on the convoy near northern city Aleppo, which the Red Cross said killed “around 20 civilians” including an employee of the Syrian Red Crescent.
The convoy, part of a routine interagency dispatch operated by the Syrian Red Crescent, was hit in rural western Aleppo province.
An airstrike by the US -led coalition, which involves fighter jets from several countries, killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday and further undermined an already-eroded cease-fire.
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 UN estimates that 18 of 31 trucks in the aid convoy were hit.
Air raids hit aid trucks near the city of Aleppo on Monday, a monitoring group reported, as the Syrian military declared that a week-long ceasefire was over. That was an improvement from Monday, when Syria’s Russian-backed government declared the cease-fire over.
In a statement Monday, the Syrian military said that “armed terrorist groups” repeatedly violated the cease-fire which came into effect last week.
Aid deliveries to the besieged eastern districts of Aleppo have not reached their destination.
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 worldwide humanitarian law”.
“It would be good if they didn’t talk first to the press but if they talked to the people who are actually negotiating this”, he told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The Observatory reported 35 strikes in and around Aleppo since the truce ended. Assad appeared on state-run media in Syria to condemn the attack, which the USA apologized for and said was an accident. Spokesman Kirby called on Russian Federation, which is responsible for ensuring Syria’s compliance, to clarify the Syrian position.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a different death toll, saying 90 troops were killed in the strikes.
The cease-fire came into effect on September 12.
“With the rebels failing to fulfill conditions the cease-fire agreement, we consider its unilateral observance by the Syrian government forces meaningless”, Rudskoi said.
The US, Russia and other key players are still set to gather Tuesday in NY for talks aimed at ending the five-year conflict that has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced millions.
“The attack by the terrorists was proceeded by a massive artillery bombardment… from tanks and rocket systems”, it said. The Pentagon said the strike was accidental and U.S. officials expressed regret, but Russian Federation and Syria raised the possibility that the USA was acting in support of ISIS.
Assad said Monday the airstrikes of the US-led coalition against his troops was meant to support the Islamic State group, calling the attack a “blatant American aggression”.
The figure does not include dozens of Syrian soldiers and Islamic State militants killed in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, the Observatory said on Monday.
No details were immediately available on the strike, but the second United States administration official said it was clearly an air attack and that US-led coalition jets weren’t responsible.
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The Saturday airstrikes involved Australian, British and Danish warplanes on Syrian army positions.
