Attacks escalate in Aleppo where 2 million are without water

A United Nations official says almost 2 million people in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo are without running water as security conditions deteriorate.

A meeting in NY 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.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon earlier said he was appalled by the “chilling” upsurge in fighting in Aleppo and warned that the use of advanced weaponry in the battleground city could amount to war crimes.

Thousands of civilians remain trapped in the besieged city of Aleppo despite efforts by Russian Federation prior to the ceasefire to open up humanitarian corridors to allow for the peaceful exit of non-combatants with numerous reports that terrorists and rebels at times have held civilians hostage in the city threatening violence against them or their families in the event that they should flee.

The Syrian Defense Ministry announced Thursday the commencement of a new offensive against rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo, urging the civilians to leave immediately and the rebels to lay down their weapons.

The bombing helped government forces, and the militias that fight alongside them, to seize the Handarat camp for Palestinian refugees, which the rebels had controlled.

“Breaking the siege through the Castello Road has become very hard”, Yassin Abu Raed, an opposition activist based in Aleppo province, told The Associated Press.

Medics said that they were carrying out many amputations to try to save the wounded and that supplies of blood and IV drips were running out. The camp, which is nearly empty and largely destroyed, has seen intense fighting and bombardment in recent years, and changed hands multiple times.

Syria’s main opposition coalition denounced the “silence of the worldwide community”, saying Damascus and its Russian allies were committing “a crime” in Aleppo. It said “the criminal campaign aims to settle worldwide accounts at the expense of Syrians’ blood”.

The renewed military showdown in Aleppo came just days after a Russia-U.S. brokered truce expired last Monday with no extension, due to the rising tension between Russian Federation and the United States.

Two weeks after Moscow and Washington announced a ceasefire, President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies appear to have launched a campaign for a decisive battlefield victory that has buried any hope for diplomacy.

Aleppo has been an epicenter of fighting in recent months.

Rebel officials said heavy air strikes hit at least four areas of the opposition-held east, and they believe the strikes are mostly being carried out by Russian warplanes.

Living conditions in the already-battered eastern districts have meanwhile grown even worse.

Water is flowing again in the western part of the Syrian city of Aleppo, but a water pumping station in the east remains damaged, according to Unicef.

Western countries and worldwide aid organisations said they feared for the lives of more than 250,000 civilians believed to be trapped in the rebel-held zone of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city, which has been divided into opposition and Government sectors for years.

“Depriving children of water puts them at risk of catastrophic outbreaks of waterborne diseases and adds to the suffering, fear and horror that children in Aleppo live through every day”, she said in a statement.

You are reading news and information on LongIsland.com, Long Island’s Most Popular Website, Since 1996. AP material published by LongIsland.com, is done so with explicit permission. This includes the preparation of derivative works of, or the incorporation of such content into other works. Please see our terms of service for more information.