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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Further east, Russian raids hit Raqqa, the stronghold of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), killing at least 24 civilians and wounding 70 people, said the Observatory.
The offer came a day after talks in Moscow between president Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan aimed at ending a crisis in bilateral ties. Russian Federation has carried out airstrikes over Syria since September a year ago in support of the government forces.
The city has been rocked by a recent surge in violence, with residents on both sides of the front line living in fear of being trapped by renewed hostilities.
De Mistura’s deputy and the head of a UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, also said he hoped fighting could stop for long enough to make a difference.
United Nations special adviser Jan Egeland said the proposed pause was “not enough” to facilitate the delivery of aid to the estimated two million civilians trapped in the city.
Rebels and militants broke a three-week government siege of Aleppo’s east on Saturday, opening a new route for goods through the southern outskirts.
AFP’s correspondent in the east said trucks carrying food were unable to enter the city today because of intense bombardment.
In the northern Aleppo countryside, at least 10 people were killed, including children and women, when airstrikes hit the village of Hayan.
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).
But the pediatricians, surgeons, and other physicians who signed the letter said the situation remained dire.
“This attack in Aleppo is yet another flagrant violation of global humanitarian law and signals a distressing pattern in the use of chemical weapons by regime forces”, said Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme.
The letter from the doctors ends with a plea for help: “We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers, we need your action”. The monitor said it had not yet confirmed how numerous remaining six people killed were civilians or DAESH militants. It said the raid destroyed a large ammunition depot, a plant producing chemical weapons and a large IS training camp.
“The burden of responsibility for the crimes of the Syrian government and its Russian ally must.be shared by those, including the United States, who allow them to continue”. The Russian military said six of its long-range bombers had flown from their base in Russia to strike IS facilities near Raqqa, but did not mention civilian casualties.
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Chlorine is a common industrial chemical, but its use in weapons is banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention.
