Aleppo

Russia is not willing to prolong its "humanitarian pause" in airstrikes in Syria's Aleppo province unless opposition groups comply with the agreement, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Oct. 24.    

The United Nations suspended all humanitarian convoys in Syria on Sept. 20 following a deadly air strike on aid trucks, as fighting intensified after the regime declared an end to a week-long truce, even as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the "cease-fire was not dead."

Air strikes have killed dozens in rebel-held parts of Syria as all sides wait for a U.S.-Russia truce deal due to take effect on Sept. 12.

Brokered after marathon talks by the foreign ministers of Russia and the United States, the cease-fire has been billed as the best chance to end Syria's five-year war.

An airstrike hit a crowded refugee camp in Syria on May 6 close to the border with Turkey, killing at least 28 people, according to Syrian pro-opposition activists. Images posted on social media said to be of the aftermath of the strike showed at least a dozen tents burned to the ground and bloodied women and children being loaded onto a pickup truck.
     

Russia said on May 1 that talks were taking place to include Aleppo in a temporary lull in fighting declared by the Syrian army in some western parts of the country, a sign of intensified efforts to halt a surge of violence in its former commercial capital.

The number of Syrians living below the poverty line has almost tripled after five years of conflict, according to a report published this week.

Around 83.4 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line compared with 28 percent in 2010, the report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) and the University of St. Andrews said.

A barrage of air strikes on rebel-held areas of Syria's second city Aleppo and a town to its west have killed at least 19 people, emergency workers said April 26.  

The strikes are the latest in a surge of violence in and around the city that has severely tested a Feb. 27 ceasefire.

Rebel and regime bombardment in Syria's Aleppo on April 24 killed at least 14 civilians, emergency workers and a monitor said, on the third day of renewed violence in the battered city.
 
Rebel rocket fire on government-held parts of the northern city killed six civilians, including a woman and two children, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.    

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has expressed her concern about reports of "new Syrian regime offensives near Aleppo and east of Damascus." 

"The EU strongly supports the U.N. efforts to resume Syrian talks and push for the political transition for the sake of Syrians, the region and the world," Mogherini said in a statement.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group jihadists have seized a string of opposition-held villages in Syria's Aleppo province near the Turkish border, a monitoring group said on April 14.