Aleppo Deaths Pass 1,000 Since Brief Ceasefire Collapsed

Aleppo went from a bustling metropolis of more than 2 million people -- about the size of Houston -- to a devastated war zone in five years. Entire blocks of buildings are reduced to rubble.

ALEPPO — (CNN) More than 1,000 people have died in airstrikes and shelling in the Syrian city of Aleppo since a short-lived ceasefire broke down 60 days ago, according to a UK-based monitoring group.

The figure includes deaths in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, in government-controlled western Aleppo and in the surrounding countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday.

The group’s tally comes as Russian-backed Syrian government forces once again pummel eastern Aleppo.

The weeklong ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia collapsed in the early hours of September 19, according to the observatory.

Of the 1,086 dead the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has documented across the city since then, 231 were children and 98 were women.

The highest number of deaths occurred in eastern Aleppo neighborhoods, where airstrikes by Russian and regime planes killed 509 people, the monitoring group said. Artillery shelling was responsible for another 47 deaths.

Russian and government airstrikes killed 300 people, including 70 children and 34 women, in Aleppo’s countryside, the group said.

Shelling by rebel factions killed another 225 people, including 59 children and 32 women, in regime-held western neighborhoods, it said.

More than 4,000 people were injured on both sides of the war-torn northern city over the same period, the group said.

Airstrikes resume this week

Syrian government aircraft resumed airstrikes Tuesday in Aleppo after a relative lull of three weeks, but clashes and shelling have continued near the front lines.

The Aleppo Media Center activist group and medical crews reported that 46 people were killed and 75 injured Friday in airstrikes and shelling in the city and surrounding countryside, with the activists describing the fighting as one of the bloodiest days yet.

Syrian jets dropped cluster bombs on the eastern Aleppo neighborhoods of al-Sukari and al-Fardous, the Aleppo Media Center said. It also reported artillery shelling there and in two other neighborhoods.

An activist in Binnish, in Syria’s northeastern Idlib province, said Russian and Syrian warplanes had bombarded half a dozen towns in Idlib since midnight.

Syria’s state-run news agency SANA said “terrorist rocket attacks” Friday had killed five people and injured 17 in residential areas of western Aleppo.

Syria’s grinding five-year conflict has devastated the city, divided between government-controlled areas in the west and rebel positions in the east.

The regime’s siege of rebel-held neighborhoods has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe as food, water and medical supplies run low.

The bombardment that resumed this week followed a dire text message sent en masse to Aleppo’s eastern residents, essentially telling them to flee or be killed in the bombings.

Rebels took control of eastern Aleppo in 2014, and government forces have besieged the area, battering it from above with the help of Russian air power. The government says the rebels are terrorists who must be driven out.

Moscow has sought to distance itself from the latest blitz, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov saying Wednesday that the Russian air force had not carried out the Aleppo strikes, according to state-run news agency Tass.

The-CNN-Wire ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. (photo: CNN)

Missed a Show? Listen Here

Newsletter

Local Weather