A human rights monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, has said that at least 16 civilians, including four children, have been killed in air strikes on rebel-held areas in Aleppo, Northern Syria.
The group said on Thursday, August 4, 2016, that the strikes were mounted by unidentified aircraft overnight on the besieged opposition-held Eastern Aleppo.
In recent weeks, activists have blamed intense air attacks on the eastern section on Syrian regime warplanes and those of allied Russia.
Last month, forces loyal to Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, imposed a siege on Aleppo’s rebel-controlled neighbourhoods after they blocked all supply routes into those areas, raising fears of a humanitarian disaster there.
The Observatory said that the was an ongoing fierce clashes between al-Assad’s troops and Islamist rebels on the South-Western outskirts of Aleppo, where opposition forces started a major offensive on Sunday in an attempt to break the regime blockade on the city.
It said that no casualties were reported as at the time of the report.
Once Syria’s commercial hub, Aleppo has been divided between government forces in the west and rebels in the east since fighting erupted for control of the city in mid-2012.
