Syrian regime bombardment ‘kills 25 civilians’ in east Aleppo

Syrian government and Russian warplanes pounded rebel-held parts of northern Syria Wednesday, including battered second city Aleppo, where food aid rations were all-but-exhausted after months of regime siege.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said Wednesday (local time) that at least 17 civilians were killed in the first 24 hours of the government offensive.

Sherif al-Khalaf, a journalist from the area, said the bombing had struck 34 areas since Tuesday, killing six and wounding dozens. More than 250,000 civilians are still trapped in rebel-held areas, with dwindling food supplies and extremely limited medical care.

In Moscow, the Defense Ministry denied allegations that Russian combat jets had bombed hospitals in Aleppo, explaining that the Russian and Syrian air forces had not attacked any targets over the past 28 days.

The bombardment restarted Tuesday after a four-week pause, part of a wider military escalation by the Syrian government and its allies, including Russian Federation, against insurgents.

Elsewhere in Syria’s north, Turkish-backed Syrian opposition forces inched closer to taking the town of al-Bab, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) northeast of Aleppo, from the Islamic State group, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters on Wednesday.

“The helicopters won’t stop for a single moment”, spokesman Bebars Mishal told the Reuters news agency.

The UN General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution on Tuesday, denouncing all violations of global human rights law as well as the indiscriminate targeting of civilians, including the Assad regime’s use of barrel bombs.

Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been roughly divided into a regime-controlled west and a rebel-held east since 2012.

The bombing hit the surroundings of a children’s hospital in the Shaar neighbourhood and of a school in the Salah al-Din neighbourhood, the Observatory said.

“Planes are more than birds, and bombs are more than rain”, one resident said of the Syrian air force’s renewed blitz.

“Pray for us please”, he added, saying that hospital had been hit by at least 20 barrel bombs – a crude but devastating weapon usually rolled out of the back of government helicopters. “The Shaar neighbourhood was burned down between yesterday and today”. Based on this information, we determined the main targets: ammunition depots, concentrations of military units, and, for the most part, centres for training illegal armed formatdeions, or terrorists, to be more precise,”These targets also include plants that manufacture different means for inflicting heavy, not to say massive, damage on the population”.

“The situation is very, very hard”, he said.

Tuesday’s bombardment ended a almost month-long lull in the Russian-backed government’s assault on the rebel-held stronghold.

Shelling of government-held western Aleppo by rebels during a failed counter-attack they staged earlier this month killed dozens of people, the United Nations said.

Damascus considers all those who oppose Assad’s government to be “terrorists” like the Islamic State jihadist group, which Trump has said should be the focus of USA involvement in Syria.