Syria fighting worst since Aleppo, air strikes deadly — aid agencies

GENEVA — Syria is in the throes of its worst fighting since the battle for eastern Aleppo last year, with heavy air strikes causing hundreds of civilian casualties, aid agencies said on Thursday.

Hospitals, schools and people fleeing violence have been "targeted by direct air strikes" that may amount to war crimes, the United Nations said, without apportioning blame.

Russia and a US-led coalition are carrying out separate air strikes in Syria ostensibly aimed at defeating the Daesh terror group militants. 

"September was the deadliest month of 2017 for civilians with daily reports of attacks on residential areas resulting in hundreds of conflict-related deaths and injuries," UN regional humanitarian coordinator Panos Moumtzis said in a statement.

Air strikes killed dozens this week in Raqqa, where 8,000 people remain trapped, and at least 149 people, mostly women and children, in residential areas of rebel-dominated Idlib province in Syria's northwest in the last 12 days of September, he said.

Explosions in Damascus killed 20 people and civilian casualties were also reported in rural areas around the Syrian capital and in Hama, Aleppo and Deir Ezzor, Moumtzis said, again without saying who was responsible.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement that up to 10 hospitals were reported to have been damaged in the past 10 days.

This had cut off hundreds of thousands of people from access to healthcare, it added.

The ICRC voiced alarm that violence was occurring in many of the so-called “de-escalation” areas including Idlib, rural Hama and eastern Ghouta. “Taken together, these are the worst levels of violence since the battle for Aleppo in 2016,” it said.

“For the past two weeks, we have seen an increasingly worrying spike in military operations that correlates with high levels of civilian casualties,” added Marianne Gasser, head of the ICRC’s delegation in Syria.

“My colleagues report harrowing stories, like a family of 13 who fled Deir Ezzor only to lose 10 of its members to air strikes and explosive devices along the way.”

 Syria’s six-year-old civil war pits President Bashar Assad’s government supported by Russia and Iran against a myriad number of rebel factions, some Western-backed, and militant groups.

Military jets believed to be Russian killed at least 60 civilians trying to flee heavy fighting in the oil-rich Deir Ezzor province when their small boats were targeted as they sought to cross the Euphrates River, opposition activists, former residents and a war monitor said late on Wednesday.

The US-led coalition fighting Daesh in Syria has carried out air strikes that have also caused civilian casualties, which it says it goes to great lengths to avoid.