Residents of rebel-held areas of Syria’s Aleppo on Saturday faced food and fuel shortages after a Syrian government advance cut the opposition’s last supply route into the city.
The army, for its part, said it was extending a 72-hour nationwide truce that began on Wednesday, but has produced little respite in fighting.
About 200,000 people remain in the opposition-held eastern sectors of Aleppo, which has been divided between government and rebel control since shortly after fighting in the city erupted in mid-2012.
Photo: AFP
Residents there described shortages of basic goods after government troops advanced within firing range of the key Castello Road supply route.
“For two days the situation was calm, I went to the market and I filled up my motorbike with gasoline. Today, I couldn’t even find a single tomato,” said Bilal Qaterji, a local textile factory employee.
“There’s not a drop of fuel left, because the Castello Road has been cut,” he said.
Government troops on Thursday effectively severed the Castello Road with the capture of a hilltop within firing range of the key route.
Rebel forces on Friday responded by firing barrages of rockets into the government-held west of the city, killing at least 41 people, most of them civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based monitoring group said 14 children were among the dead, while Syrian state media gave a toll of 44 dead and 300 injured.
The advance and ongoing fighting came despite the government’s announcement on Wednesday of a 72-hour nationwide ceasefire for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The army on Saturday said it was extending the truce for another 72 hours.
However, the observatory said fresh government air strikes on rebel-held Aleppo killed four civilians on Saturday.
The local civil defense unit said one of its centers had been targeted and two volunteers killed in the government airstrikes.
The observatory also said opposition fighters had renewed rocket fire on government-held districts.
And it reported government strikes east of Damascus, where regime troops took the town of Midaa, severing a key rebel supply route in the opposition-held Eastern Ghouta region.
In Aleppo, residents in the east said they feared ongoing shortages if the Castello Road remained closed.
“I worry that the Castello Road will be cut for a long time, it will lead to shortages of bread and other necessities,” said Ahmed Kanjou, an unemployed father of four.
Residents said prices were already rising and many were bracing for the possibility of a lengthy siege.
Syria’s government has been accused of using siege tactics to pressure rebel forces and the UN says about 600,000 Syrians live in besieged areas, most surrounded by government forces although rebels also use the method.
Activists and rights groups including Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) have reported deaths from starvation in some besieged areas.
The Castello Road wraps around Aleppo’s eastern and northern edges and leads into rebel-controlled territory north of the battered city.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been trying to cut the route for more than two years and their Thursday advance brought them the closest so far to achieving that goal.
Earlier on Saturday, the army was less than 500m from the road and soldiers were firing at anyone attempting to use the route.
Late on Saturday, Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front and rebel allies launched an offensive to push back regime forces there, the observatory said.
The monitor said a man and two children had been killed by regime fire on the road on Friday.
More than 280,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia