Fierce fighting has taken place in the Syrian city of Aleppo, as a shaky ceasefire collapsed and the government launched a massive offensive to retake the city.
The Syrian military has gained ground in the north of the city with its fresh offensive. The east remains under Syrian opposition control, though government shelling meant that repairs at the Bab al-Nayrab pumping station, which supplies water to 250,000 people, were not carried out.
In retaliation opposition groups reportedly shut down the Suleiman al-Halabi station, which pumps water to 1.5 million people in the government-held west of Aleppo.
Hanaa Singer, the Unicef representative in Syria, said,
“Nearly 2 million people in Aleppo are once again with no running water through the public network. Depriving children of water puts them at risk of catastrophic outbreaks of waterborne diseases and adds to the suffering, fear and horror that children in Aleppo live through every day.”
“In the eastern part of Aleppo, the population will have to resort to highly contaminated well water,” he added. “It is critical for children’s survival that all parties to the conflict stop attacks on water infrastructure, provide access to assess and repair damage to Bab al-Nayrab station, and switch the water back on at the Suleiman al-Halabi station.”
Meanwhile clashes continue in the north, where the suburb of Handarat was captured by the government. “Handarat has fallen,” an opposition official told Reuters. A Syrian military statement said “large numbers of terrorists” had been killed in the offensive.
See more from the Guardian here.