Beirut // The United Nations has called for urgent aid access to Syria’s Aleppo as regime forces and rebel fighters prepare for an all-out battle for control of the devastated city.
Fears are growing for trapped civilians ahead of what is expected to be a major battle for Aleppo, Syria’s second city and a focal point of the country’s five-year civil war.
Rebel factions and President Bashar Al Assad’s regime have sent hundreds of reinforcements to Aleppo in anticipation of the fighting, after opposition forces broke a government siege at the weekend and vowed to capture the entire city.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain inside the city, once Syria’s main economic hub, and UN officials have sounded the alarm over trapped residents.
The UN’s top humanitarian official in Syria, Yacoub El Hillo, and regional coordinator Kevin Kennedy said in a statement late on Monday that medical and food stocks “are run-ning dangerously low” in Aleppo.
They appealed for a full-fledged ceasefire or weekly 48-hour “humanitarian pauses” to reach those in need.
Unicef said children and families in Aleppo were facing “a catastrophic situation”, with up to two million people without running water for four days after fighting damaged electricity networks needed to pump supplies.
“These cuts are coming amid a heatwave, putting children at a grave risk of waterborne diseases,” said Hanaa Singer, Unicef’s representative in Syria.
“Getting clean water running again cannot wait for the fighting to stop. Children’s lives are in serious danger.”
Aleppo has been divided between a rebel-held east and regime-controlled west since fighting erupted in the city in mid-2012.
The UN says two million people in the city are at risk, including up to 275,000 people in east Aleppo. Other estimates put the total number of civilians in the city at about 1.5 million, with 250,000 in the eastern districts.
The recent flare-up in fighting began in late June as government forces closed in on the Castello Road, the last route into rebel-held parts of the city.
The road was severed in mid-July, beginning a roughly three-week siege of eastern districts until opposition fighters broke through regime territory on Saturday.
The push saw a coalition of rebels, hardliners and extremists cut off the regime’s own main access road on the southern edges of the city.
The offensives have left residents across the city reeling from skyrocketing prices and food shortages and afraid of further violence.
Each side has used newly acquired territory to bring food and other supplies into neighbourhoods they control, but the roads are still not safe for civilians to use.
Emboldened by their recent win, the rebel alliance on Sunday announced an ambitious bid to capture all of Aleppo city, which if successful would mark the biggest opposition victory yet in Syria’s conflict.
*Agence France-Presse
