ALEPPO/BEIRUT/DAMASCUS: Fresh fighting shook Syria’s Aleppo on Sunday with a rebel attack killing at least eight children at a school, as the UN’s envoy struggled to push peace efforts in Damascus.
The envoy, Staffan de Mistura, met with Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in Damascus for talks on the escalating violence in Aleppo, but was rebuffed on a truce proposal that would allow the opposition to administer the city’s rebel-held east.
Mistura warned that time was “running out” for eastern Aleppo as he expressed international outrage over a regime bombing campaign of rebel-held parts of the city.
“We are running out of time, we are running against time,” Staffan de Mistura said after talks in Damascus with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.
The UN envoy said concern was running high among aid agencies that “instead of a humanitarian or a political initiative” there would be “an acceleration of military activities” in eastern Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria.
International concern has been growing over the fighting, after Damascus launched a ferocious assault in Aleppo last Tuesday, using airstrikes, barrel bombs and artillery fire in a bid to recapture the east of the battered city.
Syria’s regime on Sunday pursued a relentless assault of rebel-held east Aleppo that has killed more than 100 civilians in recent days, as the UN’s peace envoy arrived in Damascus for talks.
Airstrikes, artillery fire and barrel bomb attacks continued through the night and into Sunday morning as the army pressed a new offensive that has been condemned by Washington and the United Nations.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war, said on Sunday that 54 people had been killed in the previous 24 hours, most of them civilians.
That brought to 103 the number of civilians killed, including 17 children, since the regime renewed its bombardment of Aleppo, it said.
The Observatory also reported heavy fighting between regime forces and rebels as the army sought to gain ground in the Bustan Al-Basha and Sheikh Saeed neighborhoods of the rebel-controlled east.
More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011. Successive international attempts to find a peaceful resolution to the war have failed.
De Mistura arrived in Damascus on Sunday for talks with Muallem and other Syrian officials. Speaking afterward, Muallem said he had rejected a proposal for a truce deal that would recognize an autonomous rebel administration in east Aleppo.
De Mistura has recently floated a proposal to halt fighting in Aleppo, under which militant forces would leave and the government would recognize the opposition administration in the east of the city. But Muallem said that was a non-starter.
“We told him that we reject that completely,” he said. “How is it possible that the UN wants to reward terrorists?” he asked.
The regime assault has forced the closure of hospitals and schools, destroyed rescue worker facilities, and left residents cowering in their homes.
A day earlier, Washington slammed what it described as a “heinous” operation.
US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Washington condemned “in the strongest terms these horrific attacks against medical infrastructure and humanitarian aid workers.”
“The Syrian regime and its allies, Russia in particular, bears responsibility for the immediate and long-term consequences these actions have caused in Syria and beyond.”
Moscow began a military intervention in support of President Bashar Assad’s government last year. It says it is not involved in the current assault on Aleppo, concentrating its firepower on opposition and jihadist forces in neighboring Idlib province instead.
But Damascus and its allies have made clear they want rebels expelled from eastern Aleppo, which fell from regime control in mid-2012.
More than 250,000 people remain in the east of the city, which has been sealed off since government forces surrounded it in mid-July.
On Saturday, UN officials said they were “extremely saddened and appalled by the recent escalation in fighting in several parts of Syria.”
Humanitarian coordinator for Syria Ali Al-Za’atari and regional humanitarian coordinator Kevin Kennedy also said they had shared a plan to deliver aid to east Aleppo and evacuate the sick and wounded.
“It is imperative all parties agree to the plan and allow us to secure immediate, safe and unimpeded access to provide relief to those most in need,” they said in a joint statement.
Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the war. No aid has entered east Aleppo since July, and the government siege has led to food and fuel shortages, while sustained bombardment has forced schools and hospitals to close.
In mid-October, Russia said it was halting its strikes on Aleppo, and organized a series of brief cease-fires intended to encourage civilians and surrendering rebels to evacuate the east. But few did so, and the UN said the short windows were insufficient for it to secure security guarantees for aid deliveries or evacuations.
