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  Shelling, airstrikes resume in Aleppo

Shelling, airstrikes resume in Aleppo

AFP/REUTERS
Published : Apr 30, 2016, 6:03 am IST
Updated : Apr 30, 2016, 6:03 am IST

A Syrian family runs for cover amid the rubble of destroyed buildings following an airstrike on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Al-Qatarji in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. (Photo: AFP)

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A Syrian family runs for cover amid the rubble of destroyed buildings following an airstrike on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Al-Qatarji in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. (Photo: AFP)

Regime aircraft pounded rebel areas of Syria’s second city Aleppo on Friday, hitting a clinic just days after a strike destroyed a hospital, killing two doctors and sparking an international outcry.

More than 200 civilians have been killed in Aleppo over the past week as rebels have pounded government-held neighbourhoods with rocket and artillery fire. The regime has hit rebel areas with air raids.

The bloodshed has brought a February 27 ceasefire between government forces and non-jihadist rebels to the verge of collapse and raised fears of a humanitarian crisis in the northern metropolis and other battleground areas.

A nurse was among several people wounded when the airstrike hit the clinic in the rebel-held Al-Marja neighbourhood, the civil defence — known as the White Helmets — said.

The clinic, which had been providing dental services and treatment for chronic illnesses for about five years, was badly damaged.

An AFP photographer said he heard nearly a dozen air raids within the space of a few minutes, followed by the wail of ambulances. Two civilians were killed in the strikes on Friday, one of them a child, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The rebels bombarded government-held areas with rocket and artillery fire, killing three people as they were leaving a mosque after the main weekly prayers, state television reported. In rebel areas, Friday prayers were cancelled.

Late on Wednesday, airstrikes hit the Al-Quds hospital and a nearby block of flats in the Sukkari neighbourhood, killing 30 people, including one of the last paediatricians still working in the east of the city.

US secretary of state John Kerry expressed “outrage” over the hit on the hospital, saying it appeared to be “a deliberate strike on a known medical facility”.

He called on Moscow to press its Damascus ally “to stop attacking civilians, medical facilities, and first responders, and to abide fully by the cessation of hostilities”.

The US and Russia agreed on a “freeze” in fighting along two major fronts in Syria, but not in Aleppo, the Syrian and Russian militaries said on Friday.

In a statement carried on state television, Syria’s armed forces said the freeze would begin at 1 am on Saturday.

It would last for 24 hours in Damascus and the nearby rebel bastion of Eastern Ghouta, and for 72 hours in the coastal province of Latakia, the heartland of President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect.

Escalating violence could release more horror, UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said Friday. “The violence is soaring back to the levels we saw prior to the cessation of hostilities. There are deeply disturbing reports of military build-ups indicating preparations for a lethal escalation,” he said.

Location: Syria, Aleppo