Syrian opposition says Aleppo airstrike kills 10 civilians

The Red Cross saying almost 20,000 people had fled the assault in two days.

The fighting comes a day after Russian Federation said its Syrian allies had captured nearly half of all rebel-held territory in lightning advances along the northern front, forcing rebel forces to retreat to form a new line of defence.

The Defense Ministry’s statement Tuesday comes as the Syrian government forces are pressing their offensive into the rebel-controlled neighborhoods of Aleppo.

A Syrian government soldier gestures a v-sign under the Syrian national flag near a general view of eastern Aleppo after they took control of al-Sakhour neigbourhood in Aleppo on November 28, 2016.

Aid agencies say as many as 250,000 people still live in east Aleppo, which over the past year has become one of the most uninhabitable places on earth.

The Syria Civil Defence, whose rescue workers are also known as the White Helmets, put the death toll at 45 and said a group of displaced civilians was hit. At one point, a warplane roamed overhead.

An estimated 20,000 people have been forced to flee eastern Aleppo in four days following significant ground advances by Syrian government forces against rebels in a new offensive that has caused global alarm.

A series of artillery rounds lobbed Wednesday on Syria’s eastern Aleppo district killed 26 civilians, including seven children, as they fled a government ground offensive in the besieged enclave.

The U.N. Humanitarian Chief Stephen O’Brien said he was “extremely concerned” about the fate of civilians, saying new displacements are likely.

Elsewhere in his remarks, O’Brien voiced concern about the “deeply alarming and chilling situation unfolding” in Aleppo. The official said 20,000 left besieged Aleppo Tuesday.

The civilians fleeing for their lives now are, in many cases, people who have remained in the area over the course of years of fighting and siege.

A medic in eastern Aleppo who gave his name as Abu al-Abbas said however there was “intense fear of collective annihilation”.

The lack of food is “really dire”, she said, warning that the people stuck in the east were in a “slow-motion descent into hell”.

The ministry said in a statement on Monday that more than 100 rebels have laid down their weapons and exited the Syrian city’s eastern suburbs. Hamdo said 11 empty apartments in his building were already occupied by the newly displaced, many of them women.

Hundreds of civilians were also fleeing south to the remaining rebel-held districts with little more than the clothes they were wearing. Delivered at 11 a.m. Monday-Friday.

Amnesty International called on the government to ensure that residents of areas it had captured were protected from arbitrary detention and revenge attacks.

Also in Geneva on Tuesday, spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani of the United Nations human rights office said tens of thousands of civilians trapped in opposition-controlled areas are “living under constant bombardment”. The reports could not be independently confirmed.

The neighborhood and others around it in Aleppo’s centrally-located old city have absorbed thousands of residents displaced by the advance of government troops in the east.

At the same time, indiscriminate shelling continues on civilian-populated areas and civilian infrastructure in western Aleppo, killing and injuring civilians, and displacing over 20,000 people in recent weeks.

Government forces backed by Shi’ite militias from Iran, Lebanon and Iraq punched into the rebel-held area from the northeast last week.

With rebel defenses crumbling in eastern Aleppo, Assad is on the brink of regaining full control of the city.

“We had four bulldozers, but we only have fuel to run two of them”, al-Haj said.