The UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura on Thursday said that the ongoing fighting in Aleppo shows that no military solution is possible in the Syrian city or elsewhere in the war-torn Middle East country, a UN spokesman told reporters here. “It was the first time that we were able to confirm 100 percent that an attack took place”, he said in a phone call.
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“We have a special United Nations and other organization that are addressing that”.
The eastern part of Aleppo has been held by rebel groups since 2012.
The UN is pressing Russian Federation for a 48 hour halt to hostilities while promising to investigate what it describes as considerable evidence that Mr Assad’s forces last night committed a war crime. Lieutenant-General Sergei Rudskoy said that this was to allow the passage of humanitarian aid into the besieged city.
Amid the humanitarian crisis, Russian Federation proposed a daily three-hour ceasefire to allow aid to enter Aleppo, which was meant to start Wednesday morning, however there are reports that clashes are continuing.
Russian Federation announced a unilateral, daily three-hour ceasefire, starting Thursday, to allow aid into the sprawling city in Syria.
Instead, he said, he cited an “escalation in Russian warplanes” and said government forces had tried to advance on the Ramousah district of Aleppo.
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.
A Syrian rescue worker said three civilians, a mother and two children, died in a suspected chlorine gas attack on an opposition-held district in the city of Aleppo.
“We have seen no effort on behalf of the United States to lift the siege or even use its influence to push the parties to protect civilians”, say the doctors, whose full letter is at CNN.
“When the attack began. rockets and shells were fired towards Hamdaniya”, said Abu George, a resident who fled that neighbourhood, close to the military complex in the southwest of the city. The official, based in Damascus, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements.
The report, which was posted online Thursday, could not be independently verified.
A spokesman said: “Helicopters dropped barrel bombs on the Zubdiya neighbourhood and one of the four barrels carried chlorine gas, resulting in the martyrdom of three people, two children and a woman, and injuring seven people with breathing difficulties”.
Rudskoy said that “more than 1,000 were killed and about 2,000 wounded” in the rebel ranks over the past four days southwest of Aleppo.
The latest major gains were made by rebels, however, who broke the month-long government siege in an attack last week on a Syrian military complex and also cut the main supply route to the western, government-held areas of the city.
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But UN Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Stephen O’Brien said while that would be taken seriously, a break of up to 48 hours was needed to get enough aid in on lorries. If it is confirmed that bombs dropped yesterday contained chlorine it will underline the extent to which government forces – as well as other parties to the conflict – are continuing to flagrantly violate global humanitarian law with impunity.
