UNITED NATIONS/ALEPPO – The United Nations has suspended all aid convoys to Syria in the wake of an attack on its lorries that could amount to a “war crime”, according to a top UN official.
Air raids rocked northern Syria’s Aleppo province on Tuesday, hours after 18 trucks in a UN humanitarian aid convoy were hit in an area west of Aleppo city, killing at least 12 people, the Aljazeera reported.
“As an immediate security measure, other convoy movements in Syria have been suspended for the time being pending further assessment of the security situation,” UN humanitarian aid spokesman Jens Laerke told a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday, adding the UN had recently received permission from the Syrian government to deliver aid to all besieged areas in the country.
The convoy had received proper permits, and all warring parties – including Russia and the US – had been notified, a UN spokesman said.
Eighteen of the 31 lorries, containing wheat, winter clothes and medical supplies, were destroyed. A senior official of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent was among a number of civilians killed.
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The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, has described the attack as a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”.
The United States said it was unclear if it was a Russian or Syrian plane that hit the 31-truck UN aid convoy late on Monday, but officials placed the blame on Moscow, a key ally of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“The Americans are firmly blaming the Russians, saying they’re not reining in Damascus,” Dekker said.
Aid deliveries to besieged areas had been a key part of the cessation of hostilities deal brokered between Russia and U.S. last week.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said the attacks were carried out by either Syrian or Russian aircraft.
The convoy was being unloaded at a Red Crescent warehouse when it came under attack. It had been due to deliver aid for 78,000 people in rebel-held areas near Aleppo.
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The new wave of bloodshed came after the Syrian army unilaterally declared the end of a week-long truce brokered by the US and Moscow. The government and the rebels traded blame over the collapse, each accusing the other side of hundreds of breaches.
The rebel-held east of Aleppo city, home to some 300,000 people, has been cut off from aid deliveries since July despite the ceasefire.
Ceasefire ‘collapse’
Ground battles between pro-government forces and rebel fighters raged on Tuesday morning on the southwestern outskirts of Aleppo city near the strategic Ramosa military complex, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as air raids pounded the northern province.
With the week-old ceasefire under threat, both Moscow and Washington indicated a desire to try and salvage the agreement that had brought a brief respite to at least some parts the country.
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A Russian Foreign Ministry statement late on Monday night appeared to signal that the deal could still be salvaged, saying that the failure by the rebels in Syria to respect the ceasefire threatened to thwart the agreement.
A meeting of the International Syria Support Group, chaired by Russia and US, was set to take place in New York on Tuesday.
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The ceasefire came into effect on September 12. Under terms of the agreement, the successful completion of seven days of calm and humanitarian aid deliveries would be followed by an ambitious second-stage plan to set up a joint US-Russian coordination center to plan military strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and a Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front.
But from the start, the truce has been beset by difficulties and mutual accusations of violations.
