Hundreds dead from bombs, bullets and rockets on Aleppo

Three weeks after Syrian rebels managed to break a siege on eastern Aleppo, waves of air raids and artillery barrages has cost over 300 lives

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab & agencies

20 August, 2016

Over 300 civilians have been killed in recent Aleppo violence [Getty]

Hundreds of civilians have been killed following a three-week surge in violence in Syria's devastated Aleppo city, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

At least 333 civilians have been killed since the new Battle for Aleppo began on 31 July, when rebels launched an offensive to break a regime siege on opposition parts of the city.

They were successful but rebel areas were met with devastating air raids by Russian and regime war planes and massive artillery barrages, while rebels fired rockets into western parts of the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 165 civilians - including 49 children - were killed from opposition fire on the city's regime-held western districts.

Another 168 civilians died in Russian and regime air strikes and shelling on its rebel-controlled eastern neighbourhoods, the Observatory said.

Another 109 people were killed in bombardment across the rest of Aleppo province during the same period.

Once Syria's economic hub, Aleppo city has been ripped apart by violence since mid-2012, with warplanes bombarding the east and rockets raining down on the west.

Air raids pounded ded Aleppo's southern edges on Saturday, and the intense battles there could be heard throughout the city, AFP's correspondent in an eastern neighbourhood said.

The violence rendered the rebel route out of the city - via the southern district of Ramousa - temporarily unusable, and trucks of food and other produce could not be brought into the city, the correspondent said.

Activists reported that Russia used incendary bombs on their punitive raids on the rebel districts.

Approximately 250,000 people live in the city's eastern districts, while another 1.2 million live in its western neighbourhoods.

While rebel groups are accessing the city via Ramousa, the regime is using the Castello Road to the north of the city to reach areas it controls.

According to the Observatory, regime forces seized territory on the city's southern edges on Saturday.

"There are a lot of clashes and air strikes, and the regime made modest advances. They are trying to reinforce their positions," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.