Raed Saleh, head of the Syrian Civil Defense group, told Al Jazeera that 33 civilians, including 18 women and 10 children, were brought to a local hospital after the attack in the town of Saraqeb.
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The Syrian National Coalition issued a statement that read: “After shelling, besieging and killing civilians and perpetrating war crimes on them, the Assad regime has resorted once again, and in breach of United Nations resolutions 2118 and 2235, to using chemical substances and toxic gasses”.
Russian warplanes pounded the southern edges of Aleppo on August 1, slowing a “last chance” rebel offensive against Assad’s forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
CNN has not been able to independently verify the claims.
Syrian opposition fighters have launched a major assault on government-held southwestern parts of Aleppo to try to reopen supply lines after the army and its allies tightened their siege of opposition-held parts of the city last week.
Khalil Hajjar, a media activist at the Aleppo Media Centre, said opposition fighters were advancing in the western Aleppo countryside.
Russia’s defence ministry said the Mi-8 military transport helicopter had been shot down after delivering humanitarian aid to the city of Aleppo as it made its way back to Russia’s main air base in the western province of Latakia.
Russian General Sergei Rudskoy insisted the helicopter was on a humanitarian mission, airdropping food and medical supplies to beleaguered families.
Some neighborhoods in the besieged eastern Aleppo have been under fire for more than 80 consecutive days, with regular bombardment by regime forces backed by Russian air power.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebel assault was their biggest for several months.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the incident, which occurred in an area controlled by a rebel alliance dominated by the Fateh al-Sham Front. The United Nations said the encirclement of rebel-held areas of deeply divided Aleppo traps almost 300,000 residents, making it the largest besieged area in war-torn Syria.
Mr Peskov also said Moscow would continue fighting global terrorism “on all fronts” despite threats from the Islamic State (IS) group.
The Russian military said that 169 civilians and 69 militants fled through the corridors over the weekend, the state-run Russian news agency Sputnik reported.
CNN sources on the ground believe people are too afraid to flee.
But US officials say the operation’s goal is to evacuate civilians from the city so they can then attack the rebels holding out there. Russian Federation and Syria did not immediately comment.
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They smelled of chlorine, and the civil defence workers who rescued them said the site of the attack also smelled strongly of chlorine.
