Western countries and global aid organisations say they fear for the lives of the more than 250,000 civilians believed to be trapped in the rebel-held zone of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city, divided into opposition and government sectors for years.
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Russian Federation and the United States failed to reach an agreement on the Syria crisis at a high-level meeting in NY on September 22, as the Syrian government announced a new offensive against rebel-held areas of Aleppo.
Bahaa al-Halabi, Aleppo resident:We feel the earth trembling and shaking under our feet.
He said the lack of access to the estimated 250,000 residents of rebel-held east Aleppo amid renewed air strikes and fighting was “tragic”. The aircraft targeted three centres.
A young girl was pulled alive from the rubble of a building on Friday – with volunteers using their bare hands to scrape away masonry and debris as five year Rawan Alowsh cried intermittently, according to footage broadcast by Sky News.
Asked about the weapons being used, the source said the army was using precise weapons “suitable for the nature of the targets being struck, according to the type of fortifications”, such as tunnels and bunkers, and “specifically command centers”.
The water station destroyed late Thursday provided clean water to both regime and opposition-controlled neighborhoods in Aleppo, the activist added.
“We feel the earth trembling and shaking under our feet”.
Unicef said fierce strikes on Friday prevented repairs to a damaged pumping station supplying rebel-held districts of the city, BBC reported.
“People are not safe anymore, even in shelters”, resident Yassin Abu Raed said.
Laerke explained that the United Nations was now considering sending aid along a much longer route through Damascus, but that when such a convoy could move would depend on the security situation on the ground.
– Massive destruction -Seven people were killed in a strike as they queued to buy yoghurt at a market in the Bustan al-Qasr district on the front line dividing the government-held west from the rebel-held east of the city.
The rebels laid siege to western districts after cutting the global road to Aleppo in 2014, a siege broken later by the Syrian army with the help of Hezbollah.
The unnamed source told state media on Friday that the attack will be a “comprehensive one” involving preparatory air strikes and boots on the ground that could go on “for some time”.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, who failed in talks with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to revive the ceasefire, earlier said: “What is happening in Aleppo today is unacceptable”.
The attacks come after a week-long truce, brokered by the U.S. and Russian Federation, collapsed on Wednesday.
The renewed conflict, including a strike on a United Nations aid convoy outside Aleppo on Monday night, has also blocked the delivery of most humanitarian supplies to opposition-held areas, though one convoy reached a besieged district outside Damascus on Thursday. At least 20 people were killed and 18 trucks destroyed.
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Syria has been locked in a devastating civil war since 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which had erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings – with unexpected ferocity.
