At least 15 civilians were killed Friday evening in barrel-bomb attacks carried out by regime helicopters in opposition-held parts of Syria’s city of Aleppo despite the ceasefire declared by Russians.
The two-day truce came hours after US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Moscow that Washington’s patience was running out over breaches of a nationwide ceasefire.
The new ceasefire was announced by Moscow late Wednesday in a bid to halt violence in the city, split since 2012 between a regime-held west and a rebel-controlled east.
“On Russia’s initiative, a ‘regime of silence’ has been introduced in Aleppo for 48 hours from 00:01 16 June (2101 GMT Wednesday) with the goal of lowering the level of armed violence and stabilising the situation,” Russia’s defence ministry said.
However, Assad regimebreached te new truce as he did before many times.
A civil defense official in Aleppo, Ibrahim Abu Leith, told Anadolu Agency that regime helicopters had bombed the opposition-held residential neighborhoods of Katirci and Tarik el-Bab.
Dozens of civilians were also injured in the attacks, he said.
In recent days, regime helicopters — along with Russian and Syrian warplanes — have struck a number of marketplaces, hospitals and civil-defense centers in opposition-held parts of the war-battered city.
Russian jets have also struck the strategic Castillo Road, which represents the opposition’s only means out of Aleppo, along with the Anadan, Hreytan and Kafr Hamrah areas.
On Thursday, barrel bombs and airstrikes by Assad regime hit Syria’s Aleppo hours after a temporary truce announced by regime ally Russia came into effect in the northern war-torn city.
An AFP reporter said regime helicopters dropped the crude explosive devices on the city’s rebel areas after residents had headed to markets for their first-morning shopping in weeks.
In the evening air strikes hit the eastern part of the city controlled by the rebels, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the insurgents retaliated by firing rockets into the regime-held west.
At least four civilians were killed in the fresh violence, three on the eastern side of Aleppo and one in the west, added the Britain-based monitor.
US and Russia brokered a ceasefire agreement in Syria that started on February 27 and led to starting a new round of Syria peace talks, but Assad regime breaches and crimes against Syrian civilians, especially in Aleppo, led to ceasefire’s ending and collapsing peace talks in Geneva.
