No end in sight to Aleppo’s plight
Clashes and airstrikes shake the Syrian city as heavy fighting resumes after the end of a three-day truce declared by government ally Russia.
Aleppo: Clashes and airstrikes shook the Syrian city of Aleppo, a monitor said, as heavy fighting resumed after the end of three-day truce declared by government ally Russia.
The unilateral truce ended without any evacuations by the United Nations, which had hoped to bring wounded civilians out of the rebelheld east and deliver aid after weeks of government bombardment and a three-month siege.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported heavy clashes overnight in several areas along the front line that divides the government-held west from the east.
The Britain-based monitor also reported the first airstrikes since Moscow announced a temporary halt in the Syrian army’s Russianbacked offensive to recapture the east of the city.
It said at least three people were wounded in artillery fire on the east of the city, while rebels fired a barrage of rockets and mortar shells on the government-held neighbourhood of Hamdaniyeh.
By yesterday morning, the city was quiet, but it was unclear if there would be any renewal of the truce, which Moscow and Damascus said was intended to allow civilians and rebels to leave the east.
The army had opened eight corridors from the east, but only a handful of civilians were reported to have crossed through a single passage, with the rest remaining deserted.
Russian officials and Syrian state media accused rebels of preventing people from leaving and using civilians as “human shields”.
Nearly 500 people have been killed and more then 2,000 wounded since the Syrian army launched a Sept 22 operation to recapture eastern Aleppo.
The UN had hoped to use the “humanitarian pause” to evacuate seriously wounded people and possibly deliver aid.
But a UN official said on Saturday the requisite security guarantees had once again not been received.
“You have various parties to the conflict and those with influence and they all have to be on the same page on this and they are not,” said David Swanson, a spokesman for the UN humanitarian office.
The UN had drawn up a four-day plan that was to start with two days of medical evacuations to west Aleppo, rebel-held Idlib province, and Turkey, and continue with more evacuations as well as aid deliveries.
No aid has entered Aleppo since July 7 and UN chief Ban Ki-moon has warned food rations will run out by the end of the month.
The UN had asked Moscow to consider extending the pause until this evening, but there was no indication from Russia that it would.
Russia is a key ally of Syria’s government and began a military intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad last September.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview aired Saturday that the intervention was meant to “liberate” Syria and keep Assad in power.
“Either Assad is in Damascus, or Al-Nusra is,” he said, referring to former al-Qaeda affiliate the Fateh al-Sham Front. “There is no third option here.” — AFP