BEIRUT – An intensive day of bombing in Syria’s besieged rebel-held Aleppo city left at least 25 people dead, including five children, overwhelming rescue workers who continued a day later Wednesday to search for survivors under the rubble, according to activists and a civil defence spokesman.
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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday that Tuesday’s bombings killed 25 people. But the Syrian Civil Defence, a team of first responders in rebel-held areas, and activist media platform Aleppo Media Center put the death toll at 41.
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The bombings resumed Tuesday and continued into Wednesday, shattering a relative lull in the nearly month-old intensive aerial campaign from Syrian and Russian warplanes on the stricken territory.
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The Observatory said Wednesday at least 358 civilians have been killed in eastern Aleppo since a U.S.-Russian cease-fire collapsed on Sept. 19. The U.N. says over 100 children have been killed in the campaign, which has also included a limited ground offensive.
Syria Civil Defence workers pulled at least one boy alive from under the rubble Tuesday, amid cheers from onlookers in eastern Aleppo’s al-Fardous neighbourhood. The boy emerged covered in dust and dazed from the flattened building, grapping his rescuer tightly. His mother survived but remains in critical condition, said Ibrahim al-Haj, a member of the first-responder team, also known as the White Helmets. The boy had lost his father and brother in previous bombings, according to al-Haj.
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At least 14 people were killed in the bombing in al-Fardous, according to the civil defence and Aleppo Media Center. A bombing in the adjacent Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood left 25 dead, according to both groups.
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The U.N. Security Council is deadlocked over how to respond to the Aleppo crisis. The U.S. and Russia have failed to reach an agreement on renewing the short-lived cease-fire. International aid groups and U.N. agencies have appealed for a halt to the violence to allow aid to the besieged territory. No assistance has entered Aleppo since July while hospitals, medical facilities and rescue vehicles have all come under attack.
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