As the battle between government forces aided by Russian Federation and rebel forces for control of Aleppo intensifies, the city residents are caught in the middle, deprived of water, food and medicine in a city already devastated by years of fighting.
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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 it as a weapon of war.
The Syrian Civil Defence, a volunteer rescue group operating in rebel-held territory, told Al Jazeera it had recorded three deaths and at least 25 injuries after a barrel containing a gas suspected of being chlorine fell on the Zubdiya neighbourhood of rebel-held Aleppo on Wednesday (local time).
UN 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”.
Fighting has escalated in Aleppo in recent weeks, with the Russian-backed Assad regime engaged in an intense stand-off with rebels.
Rebels and jihadists broke a government siege over the weekend, allowing aid into Syria’s second city.
He also said the three-hour Russian offer of a truce every day in Aleppo is “not enough”.
According to the Guardian, it did not place blame on any individual or organisation, but said the bombs were probably dropped by helicopters used by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad. “Young children are sometimes brought into our emergency rooms so badly injured that we have to prioritise those with better chances, or simply don’t have the equipment to help them”.
Hospital workers react after a barrel bomb struck just outside the Omar bin Abdaziz hospital in the Maadi district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo following government air raids on rebel-held districts of the city on July 16.
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.
“The stakes could not be higher in the coming days – millions of Syrian civilians are now in a seeming freefall”, Jan Egeland, the United Nations ‘s humanitarian adviser said.
Meanwhile, Russian air strikes on DAESH’s bastion, Raqqa on Thursday killed at least 30 people, including 24 civilians, a monitoring group said.
The U.K. -based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday that government aircraft had dropped barrel bombs in Aleppo’s rebel-held Zabadieh neighborhood.
“Unless a permanent lifeline to Aleppo is opened it will be only a matter of time until we are again surrounded by regime troops, hunger takes hold and hospitals’ supplies run completely dry”, they wrote.
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Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011 and has since killed more than 290,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes, and has drawn in world powers on all sides of the war.
