Russia to not extend ‘pause’ in Syria airstrikes
MOSCOW
AA Photo
Russia is not willing to prolong its “humanitarian pause” in airstrikes in Syria’s Aleppo province unless opposition groups comply with the agreement, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Oct. 24.Speaking to the media in the capital Moscow, Ryabkov said: “Nothing of what has been required in the past three days took place, so now the issue of renewing the humanitarian pause is irrelevant.”
On Oct. 21, Russian envoy to the U.N. in Geneva announced that the “humanitarian pause” in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo had been extended until Oct. 24.
However, Ryabkov said: ““The humanitarian pause ended on Oct. 22. It is clear that in order to return to it, our opponents need to ensure the adequate behavior of anti-government troops that, in particular, disrupted the medical evacuation intended during the preceding humanitarian pause.”
Hundreds of civilians have reportedly been killed or injured in Russian and Syrian airstrikes since Sept. 19, when the Bashar al-Assad regime announced the end of a week-long truce.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday that 96 civilians, including 22 children, have been killed in the two-month offensive by Turkey and allied rebels in northern Syria named as Euphrates Shield Operation.
Syrians in the opposition-held city of Douma were being forced to bury their dead in multi-layered graveyards as years of conflict made it impossible to plan new cemeteries, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Douma, in southwestern Syria’s Rif Dimashq province, has run out of space for single graves. Now the local municipality is burying people in multi-tiered plots.
“We buried our dead outside of the city as the death toll rose. Because the death toll increased more, we began to bury our dead in layered graveyards,” Adnan Mudvir, responsible for the city’s cemetery, told Anadolu Agency.
Graveyard workers are digging a 40-meter-wide-area for those who lost their lives in bombardments.
