The Latest: Russia denies carrying out strike on aid convoy
BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on developments in Syria, where a cease-fire is faltering further after airstrikes hit an aid convoy overnight (all times local):
3:15 p.m.
Russia’s Defense Ministry is denying that Russian warplanes or those of the Syrian government conducted the deadly airstrikes that targeted an aid convoy in northern Syria the previous night.
Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov says that “no kind of air attack on a humanitarian convoy of the United Nations in the southwest outskirts of Aleppo was conducted by Russian or Syrian aviation.”
His remarks were carried on Tuesday by the state news agency Tass.
The airstrikes on Monday night hit a truck convoy, killing around 20 people, including a local Syrian Red Crescent volunteer.
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3 p.m.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says around 20 civilians were killed in the airstrikes that hit an aid convoy in northern Syria the previous night.
ICRC said in its statement on Tuesday that the dead include a member of the Syrian Red Crescent.
ICRC president Peter Maurer says the attack was a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law” and “totally unacceptable.”
The statement says the civilians were killed as they were unloading trucks carrying vital humanitarian aid and that much of the aid was destroyed, depriving thousands of much-needed food and medical assistance.
Syrian activists and paramedics had said earlier that the airstrikes killed 12 people.
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A member of the Syrian Civil Defense — a group of volunteer first responders also known as the White Helmets — has criticized the U.N. humanitarian aid agency for suspending all convoys in Syria.
Ibrahim Alhaj told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Syrian civilians will pay the price for the decision.
The U.N. humanitarian aid agency’s decision came after deadly airstrikes on aid trucks the previous night that activists said killed at least 12 people, mostly truck drivers and Red Crescent workers.
Elhaj says the U.N. should have condemned the attacks on the convoy rather than suspending aid.
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12:05 p.m.
The U.N. humanitarian aid agency says it has temporarily suspended all convoys in Syria following a deadly airstrike on aid trucks the previous night.
Spokesman Jens Laerke of OCHA says the temporary suspension of the aid deliveries would hold pending a review of the security situation in Syria.
Laerke said on Tuesday that the U.N. aid coordinator had received needed authorizations from the Syrian government in recent days to allow for aid convoys to proceed within Syria.
He said it’s “a very, very dark day … for humanitarians across the world.”
The attack late on Monday came just hours after the Syrian military declared the week-long U.S.-Russian brokered cease-fire had failed. The United States said it was prepared to extend the truce deal and Russia — after blaming rebels for the violations — suggested it could still be salvaged.
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9 a.m.
Syria’s cease-fire has faltered further after an aid convoy was hit by airstrikes, with activists saying at least 12 people were killed in the attack, mostly truck drivers and Red Crescent workers.
It was not clear who was behind the attack, which sent a red fireball into the sky in the dead of night over a rural area in Aleppo province. Both Syrian and Russian aircraft operate over Syria, as well as the U.S.-led coalition that is targeting the Islamic State group.
U.N. officials said the U.N. and Red Crescent convoy was delivering assistance for 78,000 people in the town of Uram al-Kubra, west of the northern city of Aleppo.
Initial estimates indicate that about 18 of the 31 trucks in the convoy were hit, as well as the Red Crescent warehouse in the area.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group that tracks the civil war, said at least 12 were killed in the attack, mostly truck drivers and Red Crescent workers.
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