DAMASCUS – Violence in Syria continued for the fourth straight day to chip away at what remains from a cease-fire that has effectively collapsed, leaving at least 28 people dead Monday.
In the past week, nearly 150 people have been killed in northern Syria and near Damascus, marking a major escalation that has seen a fragile truce take a downward spiral to levels of violence unseen since the Feb.27 cease-fire, engineered by the U.S. and Russia, took hold.
Allies of the Damascus government have mobilized Shiite fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon to fight on the side of Bashar Assad’s forces.
Meanwhile, violence raged for the fourth straight day in Syria’s largest city, the deeply contested Aleppo.
Government shelling of rebel-held areas in the city left at least three killed, including a 6-year old girl. The Observatory said four were killed in the government shelling on the al-Jazamati neighborhood.
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and onetime commercial center, has been bitterly contested since 2012. Opposition groups control the eastern part of the city but have been boxed-in by government forces, and are now linked to the surrounding area by a single narrow corridor to the northwest.
Over 70 people dead in Aleppo alone since Friday. A government airstrike on a vegetable market in neighboring Idlib province left at least 44 people dead last week.
The U.N. envoy leading indirect talks in Geneva between the warring parties warned that the cease-fire was in trouble but said he would continue the latest round of talks until Wednesday, despite an opposition walkout last week.
Despite the violence, de Mistura said there was “modest but real” progress in delivering humanitarian aid to besieged and hard-to-reach areas — one of the main intentions of the cease-fire agreement.
On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it is delivering its second humanitarian aid convoy in as many weeks to an opposition-held town under siege in central Syria.
ICRC spokesman Pawel Krzysiek says Monday’s aid convoy to the town of Rastan, in Homs province, includes 35 trucks carrying food, delivery kits for pregnant women and anti-lice shampoo. The town has been under siege since January. It received its first batch of humanitarian aid in over a year on Thursday.
The population of Rastan has doubled to 120,000 because of the influx of people fleeing nearby fighting.
The Syrian uprising began with mostly peaceful protests in 2011, but a brutal government crackdown and the rise of an armed insurgency eventually plunged the country into a full-blown civil war. The fighting has killed more than 250,000 people, according to the United Nations, which stopped tracking casualties several months ago.
 

Source: AP, 26 APRIL 2016