MESOP INSIGHT UPDATE : Deaths on Both Sides of “Catastrophic” Aleppo / PUTIN’S WAR CRIMES

April 29 – 2016 – By Scott Lucas – eaworldview – Killing continued on both sides of Syria’s divided city of Aleppo on Thursday. Russian and regime warplanes carrying out more airstrikes on opposition territory, while State media claimed the deaths of civilians from rebel shelling of regime areas.

The Russian and Syrian air forces struck for an eighth straight day on neighborhoods including Bustan al-Qasr, Kallasa, and Sakhour. The Local Coordination Committees documented 73 deaths in and near Aleppo on Thursday.

The LCC recorded 131 deaths across Syria, with another 22 in Homs Province and 15 in Hama Province. State news agency SANA claimed 22 people were killed and at least 88 wounded on Thursday by rebel shelling of regime districts such as Midan and Ashrafiyeh.State media has said that shelling escalated from Monday, killing more than 60 people.

UN: “CATASTROPHIC” AIRSTRIKES AND BLOCKING OF AID

The head of the UN humanitarian task force, Jan Egeland, said on Thursday that there had been a “catastrophic deterioration in Aleppo over the last 24-48 hours, also in parts of the Homs area”.

In addition to the airstrikes, Egeland cited the hindrance of aid deliveries to besieged opposition areas. He noted the mortar attack on a convoy heading to the town of Rastan in northern Homs Province, and said another was forced to stop due to air raids.

The UN official also referred to the recent Russian-regime attacks on rescue and medical services, including the killing of more than 50 people in bombing of an Aleppo hospital on Wednesday night and five White Helmets rescuers in an attack on their center, west of Aleppo, on Monday:The stakes are so incredibly high because so many civilian lives are at stake, so many humanitarian health workers and relief workers are being bombed, killed, maimed at the moment that the whole lifeline to millions of people is now also at stake.Doctors have been killed, health workers have been killed and medical workers have been blocked from coming to their patients.Egeland was speaking after a weekly meeting of the International Syria Support Group, which brokered the February 27 cessation of hostilties.“There has been progress. All of that may now be lost if the…fighting and the violence and bombardment of civilians, health workers, hospitals, relief workers continue,” he said. www.mesop.de