GENEVA: Aid convoys have been unable to reach civilians trapped in besieged areas of Syria this month and a humanitarian task force has been suspended to prod big powers to double down on securing a ceasefire, the UN peace envoy on Syria said yesterday. Staffan de Mistura said a 48-hour pause in fighting in the northern city of Aleppo was the main goal for a meeting, under way yesterday, of major and regional powers tasked with resurrecting a collapsed cessation of hostilities accord. “I again insist on behalf of the Secretary General of the UN and of all the Syrian people (on having) a 48-hour pause in Aleppo to start with,” de Mistura told reporters.

“That would require some heavy lifting from not only the two co-chairs (Russia and the United States) but also those who have an influence on those who are fighting on the ground.” Russia and the United States back opposite sides in the civil war. De Mistura spoke after suspending the weekly meeting of the humanitarian task force after eight minutes “as a sign of deep unhappiness” with the failure to restore calm to enable aid deliveries to stricken civilians in besieged districts.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, also called for an immediate halt to fighting in Aleppo to allow for medical evacuations, aid deliveries and necessary repairs to water and electricity infrastructure. Aleppo, split into rebel- and government controlled areas, has become the focus of fighting in Syria’s five-year-old civil war. Up to two million people on both sides lack access to clean water after infrastructure was damaged in bombing.

Escalating violence

Escalating violence in what was Syria’s most populous pre-war city and biggest commercial hub has caused Geneva peace talks overseen by De Mistura to break down. The Syrian opposition has said it wants to see a credible pause in the bloodshed, as well as improved humanitarian aid access, before peace talks can resume. Around 590,200 people are now living in besieged areas of Syria, according to UN figures.

Aid convoys have ground to a halt during August, and the only supplies being delivered are by air drops to Deir al-Zor, the governmentcontrolled city of 200,000 in the east under siege by Islamic State, de Mistura said. Moreover, no aid has reached four besieged towns covered by a local agreement in the last 110 days, he said.

These were rebelbesieged Foua and Kefraya in Idlib province, and government-besieged Madaya and Zabadani near Damascus. “The pause should also be accompanied by humanitarian aid...and evacuation of medical cases,” de Mistura said. In all, 16 patients in Madaya and 15 in Foua and Kefraya are awaiting emergency medical evacuation, the WHO representative in Damascus Elizabeth Hoff said. “The government is in total agreement with the evacuation and the (Syrian Arab Red Crescent) is working with different armed opposition groups to make sure we have evacuations as soon as possible..., I hope Friday,” Hoff told Reuters. —Reuters

ALEPPO: In this frame grab taken from video provided by the Syrian anti-government activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), a child sits in an ambulance after being pulled out of a building hit by an airstrike on Wednesday. —AP

Harrowing video shows bloodied boy pulled from Aleppo rubble

ALEPPO: His face bloodied and completely covered in dust, the little boy sits quietly, staring ahead, dazed and shocked after an apparent air strike in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Alone in an ambulance, the boy - identified by doctors as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh - tries to wipe the blood off his head, unaware of the injury he has sustained. Video of children being pulled from the rubble of a building hit by air strikes in Aleppo has been widely circulated on social media, causing upset and condemnation over the harrowing reality of Syria’s five-year war. Aleppo, split into rebel- and government-controlled areas, has become the focus of fighting in Syria’s five-year conflict.

Rebel-held areas are suffering heavy air strikes daily as progovernment forces try to retake territory lost to rebels two weeks ago in the southwest of Aleppo. The video was shot on Wednesday in the rebel-held al- Qaterji neighborhood of the city. It shows an aid worker carrying the little boy out of a building and placing him on a seat inside an ambulance, before rushing back out to the bombedout scene.

The boy sits alone, stunned, before two more children are brought into the vehicle. A man with blood on his face then joins them. Aleppo-based freelance photographer Mohammed Raslan Abu Sheikh, who was at the scene, said civilian rescuers and aid workers were elated as Omran was pulled out of the rubble alive with the rest of his family of six. “He was in a state of shock, not even crying, he made us cry while he himself was silent, just watching us,” Abu Sheikh told Reuters. Last year, international sympathy for victims of Syria’s war was heightened by a photo of a drowned 3-year-old refugee from Syria, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish tourist beach. The image of Aylan, who died when a people smugglers’ boat taking his family and other refugees to a nearby Greek island capsized, swept across social media and was retweeted thousands of times. —Reuters