Syrian government refuses United Nations truce terms for Aleppo

It also reported heavy fighting as the army sought to gain ground in two eastern neighbourhoods.

However, Syrian officials continue to flatly reject that idea.

Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations s peace envoy for Syria, arrived in Damascus on Sunday for talks with Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem that were likely to address the latest violence.

The Observatory also documented 16 civilian deaths, including 10 children, and dozens of injuries as a result of rebel shelling of government-held west Aleppo.

In Aleppo, an airstrike early Sunday killed a family of six in their home in the Sakhour district in the east, according to the activist-run Thiqa News Agency.

That brings the number of people killed by the increased bombardment of Aleppo and the surrounding countryside over the past five days to about 180, including 97 in the city’s besieged eastern sector, the observatory added.

The Syrian government has stepped up its bombardment of besieged eastern Aleppo – an onslaught that began last week when Syria’s ally Russian Federation announced its own offensive on opposition-controlled parts of the country.

He said food in markets is scarce, prices have skyrocketed and fuel and gas for cooking is reportedly unavailable in most neighbourhoods.

Without a functional hospital inside the besieged city, the World Health Organization (WHO) says more than 250,000 people are in need of trauma care and major surgeries.

Both al-Assad’s government and Russian Federation deny any such bombings, however, and said barrel bombs – condemned for causing unnecessary suffering – were not being used.

“However, this does not prevent some OPCW members from remotely placing blame, and failing to recognize the facts of the use of chemical weapons in Aleppo against the civilian population”, he said.

De Mistura was expected to make remarks later in the day about the meeting with the foreign minister.

According to reports from Medecins sans Frontieres, there are now no functioning hospitals in the eastern part of the city – after the only specialised paediatric hospital in the area came under attack yesterday.

SANA also said shells were fired on the Faculty of Law and the neighborhoods of al-Sabil, al-Mogambo, al-Furqan and al-Midan, killing two persons and injuring 32 others in west Aleppo. However, without fully functional hospitals or basic supplies needed for survival, Aleppo’s rebel forces could be in trouble.

Director of the Syrian American Medical Society’s Turkey office, Dr. Mazen Kewara said, “For the first time, eastern Aleppo is out of hospitals operating at full capacity”.

Moscow began a military intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad’s government a year ago.

Aid agencies fear that “instead of a humanitarian or a political initiative” there would be “an acceleration of military activities” in eastern Aleppo and elsewhere, Mr de Mistura told journalists.

US President Barack Obama said he is “not optimistic” about Syria’s future, as the United Nations warned time is running out to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo which has been pounded by air strikes for almost a week.