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Dead, Dozens Injured After Suspected Chlorine Gas Attack in Syria

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said the reports are being investigated.

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However UN officials said that was too short to take in enough to help the large numbers of people in need.

A United Nations official, meanwhile, said a break in fighting for at least 48 hours was needed to get sufficient aid into the city.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch is calling on the U.N. Security Council to demand an independent investigation into a spike in Russian and Syrian military attacks on hospitals in rebel-held areas in Syria.

Russia, the main ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has vowed that it will halt its air strikes and artillery strikes between 0700 GMT and 1000 GMT for an unspecified period, starting Thursday.

It came after Russian Federation earlier said there would be daily three-hour ceasefires – but witnesses on the ground told Reuters Thursday there had been no pause in fighting.

The gas was thought to have been chlorine dropped in a barrel bomb, said the Syrian Civil Defence, whose volunteer emergency response workers are known as the “White Helmets”.

An estimated 1.5 million people still live in the battered city, including about 250,000 in rebel-held eastern districts.

Rudskoi says Russia supports the United Nations proposal to oversee the aid deliveries, adding that the Russian military is discussing the issue with United Nations experts and the USA military.

Fighting in the area has intensified, and the doctors say there have been 42 attacks in the past month against hospitals and medical clinics, and if they continue at that rate, there might not be any left in a month, the BBC reports.

A spokesman for a major rebel group fighting inside Aleppo told Reuters it was skeptical of the Russian plan.

Air strikes killed at least 19 people and wounded dozens in rebel-held Idlib province, southwest of Aleppo, on Wednesday.

“When we’re offered three hours then you have to ask what could be achieved in that three hours – is it to meet the need, or would it only just meet a very small part of the need?”

“Clearly, from our point of view, we’re simply there to meet the need, all the need.”, O’Brien said.

He says the logistics of providing aid to Aleppo are so “enormous” that a 48-hour pause each week is needed.

The monitor said another six people were also killed but it had not yet confirmed how many of them were civilians or IS jihadists.

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Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city before the war, is the subject of a bitter fight between various rebel forces and Russian-backed government forces.

UN warns 2 million in Aleppo, Syria at risk in fight for city