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Christians urged to pray for Syria as proposed ceasefire fails

Staffan de Mistura, a United Nations representative in the country, told reporters that there is a lot of evidence that it did take place.

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U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said: “We are available and interested in talking to ensure that the three hours could not be simply as a declaration and then nothing happens”.

Russian Federation says it will temporarily cease military operations in the Syrian city of Aleppo for three hours starting Thursday to allow humanitarian aid to get in, but media reports say fighting continues.

Russian and Syrian warplanes have bombarded eastern Aleppo and other rebel-held areas of Syria daily for months and the United States suggested the humanitarian corridors plan may have been an attempt to depopulate the city so that the Syrian army could seize it.

The report, which was posted online on Thursday, could not be independently verified and it was not clear how it was determined that chlorine gas was released.

“The children”, he said, “all of us were choking”. In response, government-loyal ground troops backed by air support from Russian Federation have been mounting a counterattack there in what appears to be a crucial escalation in the five-year-old Syrian conflict.

The British-based group said bombardments by both sides have killed more than 120 people in the city since the start of August.

The attack on a residential neighbourhood in a part of Aleppo controlled by armed groups is the third reported use of chemical weapons in northern Syria in just two weeks and has reportedly killed at least four people.

A Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter smokes a cigarette in the city of Manbij, in Aleppo Governorate.

There have been unconfirmed reports among activists and residents of chlorine gas falling on rebel-held east Aleppo since the insurgent offensive.

The UN wants a 48-hour weekly halt to the violence in order to deliver large amounts of food and other aid and to evacuate the sick and wounded.

Under a deal hammered out in 2013 between Russian Federation and the United States following a deadly sarin gas attack in Ghouta, Syria joined the UN Convention against chemical weapons and pledged to hand over all such arms to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for destruction.

But it made no mention of the “humanitarian windows” announced by Russian Federation. He spoke to the AP via a messaging service.

Helicopters also dropped explosive barrels on the neighbourhoods of Seif al Dawla and Zubdiya late on Wednesday evening, according to the the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Another report noted that four people were killed and injured from these weapons.

Accusations involving use of chlorine and other poisonous gases are not uncommon in Syria’s civil war, and both sides have denied using them while blaming the other for using them as a weapon of war.

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Kafr Hamra is near the northern front line in the divided city of Aleppo, where government troops have sealed the main route into opposition areas, effectively trapping almost 300,000 residents.

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