begin quote from:
200 airstrikes pummel Aleppo
Aleppo strikes trap children in rubble
Story highlights
- 200 airstrikes pummel eastern Aleppo since Friday, a volunteer group says
- 50 people are reportedly buried in rubble in Aleppo
(CNN)Bloodied toddlers wail on a hospital bed. Rescuers pull a baby from rubble, unsure whether the child will survive.
The
latest videos from rebel-held eastern Aleppo purportedly show scenes
from a nightmare that a joint US-Russian peace plan was supposed to
resolve.
Instead,
there's been more violence in Syria as diplomacy seems to have failed
once again. Air raids are worse than before the ceasefire went into
effect, the opposition says.
Activists
say the wounded children in footage from the besieged city were hit by
airstrikes as the Syrian government announced a new offensive in the
area.
Photos: Heartbreaking images following Aleppo airstrike
Hundreds of airstrikes
About
200 airstrikes have pummeled neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo since
Friday morning, said Ammar al-Selmo, the head of the Syria Civil Defense
group, a volunteer emergency medical service.
Rescue teams are still working to extract people from the rubble, he said.
Al-Selmo
estimated that more than 100 people have been killed and hundreds more
injured within Aleppo neighborhoods by the airstrikes. This figure does
not include neighborhoods in the countryside. CNN could not immediately
confirm the death toll.
During a
rescue operation overnight Friday into Saturday, at least five members
of the Syria Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, were
injured by a nearby airstrike, al-Selmo said. One of those hurt is in
critical condition.
Trapped in rubble
An
activist with the opposition-aligned Aleppo Media Center, Mujahed Abu
Aljood, told CNN on Friday that more than 60 airstrikes rained down that
day.
He said the center believed more than 50 people, including children, were trapped in rubble in different areas of Aleppo.
"Civil
defense crews are incapable of extracting them from underneath the
rubble due to the intense airstrikes on the city of Aleppo," he said.
"Since midnight until now, there are eight dead people and 10 injured as
a result of the airstrikes."
Syria: The biggest issue for the next US president? 00:41
The
AMC cited the Syria Civil Defense as saying that Russian jets were
involved in an airstrike north of Aleppo; CNN has reached out to Russian
authorities for comment, but has yet to receive a response.
United Nations takes a stand
United
Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that the Syrian
offensive's airstrikes, incendiary weapons and bunker-buster bombs in
densely populated places may amount to war crimes, the Ban's spokesman
said Saturday.
"The
secretary-general is appalled by the chilling military escalation in the
city of Aleppo, which is facing the most sustained and intense
bombardment since the start of the Syrian conflict," the statement said.
"The secretary-general considers this a dark day for the global
commitment to protect civilians."
The
secretary-general urged the international community to unite and say it
will not tolerate the indiscriminate use of power weapons against
civilians.
Rebels launch counterattack
Syrian
rebels, meanwhile, launched a counter-offensive against government
forces Saturday to try to retake the area north of the city that was
lost to the government earlier in the day, according to the UK-based
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
There were conflicting reports as of late Saturday about the success of the counterattack.
Trading blame
The fragile ceasefire that went into effect on September 12 fell apart less than a week later after US-led coalition forces struck a Syrian position, killing scores of soldiers.
The
US military did not dispute the strike, but characterized it as
"unintentional" and relayed its "regret" to Syria through Russia.
Rescue workers work the site of airstrikes in the al-Sakhour neighborhood.
The strike has erupted in a diplomatic row between the US and Russia, the brokers of the ceasefire.
After
an attack on an aid convoy -- which no one has admitted to carrying out
-- and the new fighting, the head of the United Nations acknowledged
the international community's failure.
"The
Syrian tragedy shames us all," the secretary-general said. "The
collective failure of the international community should haunt every
member of this Council."
Speaking
at the United Nations on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov called for an investigation of the latest violence.
"It
is essential to prevent the disruption of these agreements and to carry
out an unbiased and impartial investigation of the incidents," Lavrov
said.
Rooting out terrorism groups in Syria, he said, "is absolutely important in order to have truces and reconciliation."
The
United States has pointed its finger at the regime of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad, blaming it for the breakdown of the cessation of
hostilities and demanding the grounding of all military aircraft.
US
Secretary of State John Kerry called on Syria and Russia to end aerial
bombardment of eastern Aleppo, stating there is "no chance" of peace
without an end to military operations and coordination between the
parties.
Al-Assad on Thursday said the United States is not interested in a ceasefire, but that his government is ready and willing to commit to one.
The UN works to deliver aid to Syria 01:06
"I
believe that the United States is not genuine regarding having a
cessation of violence in Syria," he told the state-run Syrian Arab News
Agency.
Attacks intensify
The
latest air strikes on Aleppo come after 20 people were killed and the
city's main water pumping station was destroyed, according to the media
center.
The military operation,
conducted by Syrian forces, formally marked the end of the short-lived
ceasefire that sought to quell violence, coordinate efforts to defeat
ISIS and allow aid to enter the besieged city.
The
UN children's agency said the damage Thursday to the water pumping
station, plus the retaliatory closure of another serving the western
part of Aleppo, left almost 2 million people in the city without access
to running water.
"Depriving
children of water puts them at risk of catastrophic outbreaks of
waterborne diseases and adds to the suffering, fear and horror that
children in Aleppo live through every day," said Hanaa Singer, UNICEF's
representative in Syria.
UNICEF
announced early Sunday local time that water was again flowing in the
western part of the city, although the pumping station in the eastern
section still needed repairs.
Syria's military announced
the "start" of military operations in eastern Aleppo, warning residents
to keep away from specific sites and centers of "armed terrorist
groups," according to state-run news agency SANA.
US boy asks Obama to adopt Syrian refugee 00:55
Activists say allied Russian forces have participated in the strikes, though Moscow has not confirmed its involvement.
Obstacles to aid
An
airstrike on Monday destroyed a Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) aid
convoy in Urum al-Kubra, west of Aleppo, prompting the United Nations to
halt its aid operations in Syria.
Russia
denied carrying out the strike, instead charging that the convoy was
hit by a "terrorists' pickup truck carrying a large-caliber mortar,"
according to Russian state news agency Tass.
The fire station is Aleppo was reduced to rubble.
A
convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid did reach the besieged town
of al-Muadamiyah in the Damascus countryside, a UN spokesperson told CNN
on Thursday. It's an interagency humanitarian effort of the United
Nations and SARC, carrying aid for 7,000 people, according to a tweet
from the SARC.
Syrians in eastern
Aleppo and other besieged cities and towns are facing a dire shortage of
food, medicine and other supplies. The country's civil war, which is in
its sixth year, has so far claimed the lives of more than 400,000
people and sparked a refugee crisis, according to the United Nations.
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