A senior United Nations humanitarian official urged Thursday for an immediate pause to the fighting around Syria’s contested city of Aleppo as government forces pounded opposition areas with airstrikes and rebels kept up their attempts to break a government siege.
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In Libya, pro-government forces, backed by USA air strikes, fought to advance on Islamic State group jihadists in Sirte yesterday despite mines and snipers, a spokesman said. And that perhaps is the reason why the report about two chemical attacks in Syria on Wednesday was treated as “routine news” in many parts of the world. “Insurgents fired rocket launchers and homemade mortars at the “Castello” shopping mall, the areas of Ansar and al-Hadher as well as the Leramon district”, it said.
Weve taken 12 injured people, six other patients have already died from suffocation.
“One of them was a child who lost his leg, and he is now in a serious condition”.
Last month, a 24-year-old Colorado man who joined the YPG was killed in combat in Syria, his mother Susan Shirley said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group confirmed that a part of the facility was captured.
Meanwhile, Syrian regime forces bolstered by Russian air strikes have recaptured territory in the battleground city of Aleppo, rolling back the short-lived gains of a rebel offensive.
Rebel fire killed at least nine civilians, including three children, in the government-held portion of Aleppo, while presumed Russian or Syrian government airstrikes killed at least 11 in Atareb, a town to Aleppo’s west, activists and government media reported.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian Government forces, with the aid of heavy Russian air strikes, seized two hilltops and two small villages in the south-west of Aleppo. It said the shells were launched by rebels.
More than 40 civilians have been killed by shelling on government-held neighbourhoods since Sunday.
The Aleppo offensive groups fighters from Fateh Al-Sham Front, formerly Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, the powerful Ahrar Al-Sham and other factions.
Russian and Syrian forces say they have been operating seven so-called humanitarian corridors, allowing hundreds of people to leave the besieged area peacefully.
SANA also said rebel fighters surrendered themselves to the authorities.
“There [doesn’t] need to be corridors”. The thick black smoke rising off the tires can be seen stretching across the city, darkening the horizon and greatly decreasing visibility from the sky.
“If this doesn’t happen, it will be a black stain on the conscience of humanity”, he said. “It’s like we’re erasing a century of progress for humanity, for civilization”.
The gas in question was reportedly chlorine a highly toxic substance that leads to breathing problems, a loss of consciousness, and illnesses among those exposed to it.
The United States and Russian Federation were in intensive discussions to “shore up” Syria’s collapsed nationwide truce and their military experts were still trying to agree a cooperation plan “that would unlock the entire solution”, Ramzy said.
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A doctor in Saraqeb who told CNN he treated some of those affected said their symptoms were consistent with chlorine poisoning.
