Jens Laerke, spokesperson for United Nations humanitarian office, said part of the convoy was expected to move Thursday, but not to Aleppo where almost 300,000 residents are in need of humanitarian aid amid an ongoing siege, Anadolu writes.
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Hours after the Monday’s announcement, an air strike hit an aid convoy near Aleppo, killing 20 civilians and destroying 18 trucks, the Red Cross said.
On Tuesday night the Paris-based Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM) said an attack had taken place on its facility near Aleppo and killed five aid workers.
Earlier, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations chief, launched a stinging attack on Syria’s government, saying it has killed the most civilians in the five-year civil war and continues “to barrel bomb neighbourhoods and systematically torture thousands of detainees”.
The organisation, known by its French initials UOSSM, had initially said that the Tuesday night strike levelled a medical triage point it operates in rebel-held territory outside Aleppo. A United Nations aid convoy taking desperately-needed supplies to 78,000 people in a rebel-held area of Aleppo was attacked over a three-hour period, and there are reports a Russian fighter jet was overhead.
First a United States-led airstrike on Saturday, meant to hit Islamic State positions, instead killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers.
The attacks prompted a temporary suspension on United Nations overland aid convoys to priority areas in Syria, but the United Nations said on Wednesday it would be resuming operations on a case-by-case basis.
And the UN Security Council is due to hold a high-level meeting on Syria on Wednesday.
Convoys have repeatedly been blocked for security reasons, refusals by the Syrian government to grant authorisation and strict conditions imposed by opposition groups.
Russia’s Defense Ministry followed by saying the aid convoy was accompanied by militants in a pickup truck with a mortar, Kerry said, adding that no such evidence exists.
MOSCOW-Russia escalated rhetoric against the U.S. over a failing cease-fire in Syria on Thursday, rejecting a proposal by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to ground aircraft to prevent further escalation of tensions in the country. “And I urge the entire worldwide community to get behind the best chance that we have yet had to reduce the violence, to provide humanitarian assistance and to open up the space for negotiations”.
The town is besieged by government forces.
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He suggested Western allegations that Moscow was directly or indirectly responsible are an attempt to distract attention from the US-led coalition’s deadly bombing of Syrian soldiers in Deir-el-Zor last Saturday.
