BEIRUT– Nearly 30 air strikes hit rebel-held areas of Syria’s northern city of Aleppo on Saturday, killing more people in a ninth straight day of bombardments.
The violence in Aleppo, which has borne the brunt of an escalation in fighting that has all but destroyed a ceasefire deal brokered in February by Washington and Moscow, has killed nearly 250 people since April 22, a monitoring group said.
It has also contributed to the break up of peace talks in Geneva, which the main opposition walked out of last week.
At least five people were killed in Aleppo early on Saturday in the latest round of air strikes, which were believed to have been carried out by Syrian government warplanes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The British-based monitoring group put the civilian death toll in government and rebel bombardments of neighborhoods in Aleppo since April 22 at nearly 250.
This figure included around 140 people killed by government-aligned forces in air strikes and shellings of rebel-held areas, including 19 children, it said.
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, has been divided for years between rebel and government zones.
Syrian helicopters later in the day dropped a number of barrel bombs southwest of Damascus but outside the area where the lull in fighting was meant to take place, the Observatory said.
The United Nations has called on Moscow and Washington to help restore the ceasefire to prevent the complete collapse of talks aimed at ending a conflict in which more than 250,000 people have been killed and millions displaced.
Aid agencies have continued to deliver aid in the west of the country, but say that access is not regular enough and that many Syrians in need still cannot be reached.
On Saturday fresh aid had begun to enter the towns of Zabadani and Madaya, where there were reports of starvation earlier this year due to a siege by government forces and their allies.
Trucks simultaneously entered al-Foua and Kefraya in the northwest province of Idlib, which are surrounded by insurgents.
 

Source: Reuters, 30 APRIL 2016