However, a coalition of two dozen anti-Assad rebel groups, calling itself “The Army of Conquest”, led by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS), are claiming that they’ve broken the siege and that food is entering the city.
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The situation in Aleppo flared up last month, when government forces unleashed an offensive in the north of Aleppo, severing the Castello road which is the last rebel-controlled supply route into eastern Aleppo.
“We will not rest until we raise the flag of conquest over Aleppo’s citadel”.
Rebels breached the Syrian government siege on opposition neighborhoods in the city of Aleppo Saturday, opening a corridor in the south and marking a major military breakthrough.
Fierce fighting and airstrikes continue in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo as insurgents try to break a siege on opposition-held eastern districts in a counteroffensive to government advances.
“We are in our trenches but there are insane air strikes of unprecedented ferociousness”, a commander in the rebel coalition told Reuters.
“People love Nusra now they liberated the city, but they do not represent us”, said activist Ahmad al-Abdullah, who was wary about the jihadists’ intentions for Aleppo.
Rami Abdurrahman, the chief of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said food prices in government-held parts of Aleppo have already gone up.
“Despite more than 600 Russian strikes, the regime forces were not able to hold on to their positions”, he said, adding their troops had been redeployed.
The eastern districts of Syria’s second city have been suffering severe food shortages since government forces cut the last road out on July 17.
In May, President Bashar al Assad likened the fight for Aleppo to the battle of Stalingrad.
The rebel advance into Ramouseh has now raised questions about the security of supply lines into government-held western Aleppo.
Those trapped inside the besieged part of the city – which includes up to 90,000 of whom are children, according to the World Health Organization – face a humanitarian crisis, with acute shortages of food and medicine, the United Nations has said. Syrian forces have repelled attacks of units of the Jaish al-Fatah armed coalition in the south and southwest of Aleppo, some 360 kilometers from Damascus, Al-Watan newspaper reported on Monday.
More than 700 fighters from both sides were killed in the onslaught, a lot of them rebels because of the regime’s air superiority, it said. The U.N. has been able to make deliveries to some of the besieged areas, but has faced obstacles including certain supplies being barred from the convoys.
The rebels also posted pictures of armored vehicles, munitions, howitzers, rockets and trucks that they took possession of after they overran the Ramousah military complex.
Osama al-Ezz, a physician working in the Aleppo countryside, said a nominal amount of relief has reached the formerly besieged quarters, but “not enough for empty stomachs”. Over 300,000 civilians remain in the city and are in critical need of humanitarian aid and medicine. An estimated 250,000 civilians – a third of them children, according to the UN Children’s Fund – were essentially locked into a giant open prison.
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Three vans of vegetables crossed into east Aleppo, Abdel Rahman said, but this was a symbolic gesture and the corridor was too risky for civilians or significant supplies to pass.
