Heavy clashes erupted between regime and rebel forces in Syria’s divided city of Aleppo after a “humanitarian” ceasefire announced by government ally Russia expired before the UN could evacuate wounded civilians from rebel-held areas.
Moscow had extended the unilateral “humanitarian pause” into a third day on Saturday but announced no further renewal, as fierce fighting broke in several areas along the front line dividing the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
Three people were wounded by shelling of the rebel-held Salaheddin and al-Mashhad districts, they said, adding that the first airstrikes since the end of the truce hit the opposition-controlled district of Sheikh Saeed where there was also heavy fighting.
Neither residents nor rebels of opposition-held districts heeded calls from Syria’s army and Moscow to leave during the ceasefire, after weeks of devastating bombardment and a three-month government siege.
The pause began on Thursday, and came after Moscow announced a temporary halt to the Syrian army’s campaign to recapture the divided city.
The army opened eight corridors for evacuations, but just a handful of people crossed through a single passage, with the others remaining deserted.
“Members of popular civil committees from regime districts entered the eastern neighborhoods to try to evacuate the injured but failed,” observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said on Saturday.
Syrian state media and Russian authorities have accused rebels in the east of preventing civilians from leaving and using them as “human shields.”
The UN had hoped to use the ceasefire to evacuate seriously wounded people and possibly deliver aid.
However, a UN official on Saturday said the requisite security guarantees had not been received.
“You have various parties to the conflict and those with influence and they all have to be on the same page on this and they are not,” UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesman David Swanson said.
The UN had drawn up a four-day plan that was to start with two days of medical evacuations to west Aleppo, rebel-held Idlib Province, as well as Turkey, and to continue with more evacuations and aid deliveries.
No aid has entered Aleppo since July 7 and food rations will run out by the end of the month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday.
The UN had asked Moscow to consider extending the pause until tomorrow evening.
Moscow accuses rebels of preventing civilians from leaving, with Russian General Sergei Rudskoi accusing them of “using the ceasefire in their interests.”
“We are seeing them massing around Aleppo and preparing for another breakthrough into the city’s western neighborhoods,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview that the intervention was meant to “liberate” Syria and keep al-Assad in power.
“Either [al-]Assad is in Damascus, or al-Nusra [front] is,” he said, referring to former al-Qaeda affiliate the Fateh al-Sham Front. “There is no third option here.”
The observatory said earlier both rebels and regime forces appeared to be reinforcing their positions.
“The regime and the rebels are both bolstering their forces, which raises fears of a massive military operation if the ceasefire fails,” Abdel Rahman said.
Some say that the third time’s a charm. Not so for SpaceX, whose unmanned rocket on Wednesday exploded on the ground after carrying out what had seemed to be a successful flight and landing — fresh on the heels of two fiery crashes. It was yet another flub involving a prototype of the Starship rocket, which SpaceX hopes one day to send to Mars. “A beautiful soft landing,” a SpaceX commentator said on a live broadcast of the test flight, although flames were coming out at the bottom and crews were trying to put them out. The rocket exploded a few minutes later,
LEGAL ORDEAL: The heavy caseload involving 47 defendants and the vagaries of a Beijing-imposed security law made it difficult for the court to rule on bail requests Dozens of Hong Kong democracy advocates charged with subversion yesterday returned to court to complete a marathon bail hearing that was adjourned overnight when four defendants were rushed to hospital after hours of legal wrangling. Police on Sunday arrested 47 of the territory’s best-known dissidents for “conspiracy to commit subversion” in the broadest use yet of a sweeping National Security Law that Beijing imposed on the territory last year. The defendants represent a broad cross-section of Hong Kong’s opposition, from veteran former pro-democracy lawmakers to academics, lawyers, social workers and youth advocates. Hundreds of supporters gathered outside a courthouse on Monday for the
China, under growing global pressure over its treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang, is mounting an unprecedented and aggressive campaign to push back, including explicit attacks on women who have made claims of abuse. As allegations of human rights violations in Xinjiang mount, with a growing number of Western lawmakers accusing China of genocide, Beijing is focusing on discrediting the female Uighur witnesses behind reports of abuse. Chinese officials have named women, disclosed medical data and information on their fertility, and accused some of having affairs and one of having a sexually transmitted disease. Officials said that the information was evidence of bad character,
The plane laden with vaccines had just rolled to a stop at Santiago’s airport in late January and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera was beaming. “Today is a day of joy, emotion and hope,” he said. The source of that hope: China — a country that Chile and dozens of other nations are depending on to help rescue them from the COVID-19 pandemic. China’s vaccine diplomacy campaign has been a surprising success: It has pledged about 500 million doses of its vaccine to more than 45 countries, according to a country-by-country tally by The Associated Press (AP). With just four of China’s many
RSS