Syrian and Russian warplanes have launched a fresh blitz on the rebel-held city of Aleppo as government troops pressed a major offensive to take back the city.
In the rebel-held eastern suburbs, residents said scores of civilians had been killed or injured, pushing doctors to work 24-hour shifts and treat patients on bloodied floors when beds ran out.
The attacks have shredded a cease-fire deal hailed by the United States and Russia as a rare chance to push the war toward peace talks and its eventual conclusion.
Under cover of airstrikes, Syrian government troops captured a rebel-held area on the edge of Aleppo, tightening their siege on opposition-held neighbourhoods in the northern city after what residents described as the heaviest air bombardment of the five-year civil war.
The UN meanwhile said nearly 2 million people in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and one time commercial centre, are without running water following the escalation in fighting over the past few days.
The UN Security Council called an emergency meeting for Sunday morning to discuss the escalating attacks.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the “chilling” escalation in Aleppo, which he said marked the “most sustained and intense bombardment since the start of the Syrian conflict”.
The statement issued by his spokesman said the reported use of “indiscriminate” weapons in densely populated areas “may amount to war crimes”.
Government forces captured the rebel-held Palestinian refugee camp of Handarat as airstrikes pounded eastern neighbourhoods of Aleppo, killing 52 people, including 11 children and six women, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Local Co-ordination Committees, another monitoring group, said 49 were killed on Saturday alone.
The Observatory said the death toll in Aleppo is expected to rise since many people are in critical condition and rescue workers are still digging through the rubble.
Residents say the latest bombardment is the worst they’ve seen since rebels captured parts of the city in 2012. Activists reported dozens of airstrikes on Friday alone.
“Since the beginning of the crisis, Aleppo has not been subjected to such a vicious campaign,” said Mohammed Abu Jaafar, a forensics expert based in the city. “Aleppo is being wiped out.”
For days, videos and photographs from eastern Aleppo have shown flattened buildings and paramedics pulling bodies from the rubble. Wounded people have flooded into clinics, where many are being treated on the floor because of a lack of stretchers.
“People in Aleppo already suffocating under the effects of the siege, have yet again come under horrific attack,” said Carlos Francisco of Doctors Without Borders, which supports a number of area clinics. “No aid, including urgent medical supplies, is allowed to enter.”
“We are deeply worried by the high numbers of wounded reported by the hospitals we support, and also know that in many areas the wounded and sick have nowhere to go at all – they are simply left to die.”
If there had been any doubt before that the ceasefire deal co-sponsored with Russia is dead the weekend violence put it to rest. A meeting in New York between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ended swiftly on Friday, without statements or discernible progress toward Kerry’s stated goal of reviving last week’s cease-fire.
At a news conference in New York, Mr Lavrov said the US needs to come around to the idea that President Bashar Assad is the only viable partner in the fight against terrorism, calling his army “the single most efficient force fighting terror in Syria”.
“Little by little, life will make everyone understand that it’s only together that you can fight terrorism,” Mr Lavrov said.
His comments, alongside the events of the past week, suggest that Russia and Syria still believe the war can be won outright, without recourse to negotiations that the US has said offer the only way out of the Syrian tragedy.
brisbanetimes.com.au
