Overwhelmed rescue workers combed rubble for victims of intense air strikes on Syria's battleground city Aleppo on Friday, ahead of fresh diplomatic efforts to end the country's intractable conflict. The United States and Russia, which support opposite sides in the five-year war, will meet in Switzerland on Saturday to try to resurrect the peace process.
Moscow has faced swelling international criticism over its backing for President Bashar al-Assad's onslaught in divided Aleppo, including Western accusations of possible war crimes. Violence has continued unabated in the northern city, once Syria's commercial hub but now ravaged by Russian and regime air strikes in support of a major government offensive against rebels.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitor, said Russian and Syrian warplanes pounded opposition-controlled eastern districts again on Friday, though it did not have any immediate information on casualties. The intensified bombardment has put a severe strain on rescue workers and medical staff in east Aleppo, home to an estimated 250,000 residents under siege. "This recent escalation has been huge and we've had a lot of work," said Ibrahim Abu al-Leith, a spokesman for the White Helmets rescue force in Aleppo.
"The civil defence team hasn't slept in four days because of the bombardment on the eastern neighbourhoods. Even our machines are exhausted," he told AFP. He said rescuers were still working to dislodge people from under the rubble in the Tariq al-Bab eastern district. AFP's correspondent in east Aleppo said some people had been stuck under the rubble for at least two days as strained White Helmets teams scrambled between neighbourhoods. Rescue workers have been afraid to work at night, fearing that the large floodlights would attract warplanes circling overhead.
Some people trapped under collapsed buildings bled to death after White Helmets teams were unable to reach them in time. Since the collapse last month of a truce brokered by Washington and Moscow, Aleppo has been engulfed by some of the worst violence of the conflict. More than 370 people, including nearly 70 children, have been killed in regime and Russian bombardment of east Aleppo since the regime's assault began on September 22, the Observatory said.
Dozens of civilians, including children, have also died in rebel bombardment of regime-controlled western districts, according to the monitor, which compiles its information from sources on the ground. US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are expected to hold fresh talks to try to revive the ceasefire deal in Lausanne on Saturday.
UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura will attend, along with the chief diplomats from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar - all backers of Syrian opposition forces. Then in London on Sunday, Kerry will likely meet up with his counterparts from Britain, France and Germany. Lavrov spoke Thursday with his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault, despite tensions over Syria that prompted President Vladimir Putin to cancel a trip to Paris. In an interview with Russia's Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid published Friday, Assad said he would use a victory in Aleppo as a "springboard" to capture other rebel strongholds.
"It's going to be the springboard, as a big city, to move to another areas, to liberate another areas from the terrorists," he said. He indicated that his next target could be north-western Idlib province, held by an alliance of rebels and jihadists including the Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front when it cut ties with al Qaeda. "You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey to go back to where they come from, or to kill them. There's no other option," Assad said.
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