On Thursday, the second day of a government-announced three-day ceasefire, regime forces advanced in the al-Malah Farms area of northwest Aleppo, closing in on the Castello road. They are now 500 to 1000 metres from the road, within firing range, effectively cutting off rebel groups from the route.
Damascus defended the advance, saying it was in retaliation as “terrorists are violating the truce,” in a statement broadcast on Syrian State TV.
The United Nations fears for the wellbeing of the 300,000 people living in the rebel-held parts of the city who are now effectively besieged.
“Heavy fighting over the past few days has continued to put civilians at risk of death and injury while effectively cutting off humanitarian’s access to people in need of assistance,” a spokesperson for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday.
Rebel groups remain defiant and are fighting back.
“We will not allow them to blockade this city. We will not allow their planes to scare us,” said Al-Raed Yasser Abdel Raheem, commander of Aleppo operations for the Free Syrian Army, in a video posted on YouTube on Thursday reassuring the people of Aleppo that they will not allow the city to be besieged.
Shells fired from rebel-held areas into government-held areas of the city killed at least 38 civilians on Saturday, reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Fourteen children and thirteen women were among the dead, said the Observatory.
Government airstrikes and shelling of rebel-held areas also resulted in civilian casualties. At least five people were killed, according to the Observatory.
The White Helmets, a volunteer civil defense organization, reported that two of its members were also killed in aerial bombings of rebel-held areas in Aleppo on Friday.
The UN called on all parties in the Syrian conflict to protect civilians and ensure humanitarian access remains open in all areas, particularly eastern Aleppo.
The Syrian army on Saturday announced a three-day extension to the nation-wide ceasefire.
Aleppo’s pre-war population was 2.5 million. Thousands have been killed in the six years of civil war and hundreds of thousands have fled the city, which is split into areas held by the government, a variety of rebel groups, and extremists.
The battle for control of Syria’s largest city has been ongoing for four years and the scale of destruction in Aleppo is massive.
