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By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, Aug 18 Reuters - No aid convoys have reached
civilians trapped in besieged areas of Syria this month and a
humanitarian task force has been suspended as a warning to big
powers to double down on securing a ceasefire, the UN peace
envoy for Syria said on Thursday.
Staffan de Mistura said a 48-hour pause in fighting in the
northern city of Aleppo was the main goal for a meeting later in
the day of major and regional powers tasked with resurrecting a
collapsed cessation of hostilities accord.
"I again insist on behalf of the Secretary General of the
UN and of all the Syrian people (on having) a 48-hour pause in
Aleppo to start with," he told reporters in Geneva.
"That would require some heavy lifting from not only the two
co-chairs (Russia and the United States) but also those who have
an influence on those who are fighting on the ground."
De Mistura spoke after suspending the weekly meeting of the
humanitarian task force after eight minutes "as a sign of deep
unhappiness" with the failure to restore calm to enable aid
deliveries to stricken civilians in besieged districts.
Aleppo, split into rebel- and government controlled areas,
has become the focus of fighting in Syria's five-year-old civil
war. Up to two million people on both sides lack access to clean
water after infrastructure was damaged in bombing.
Escalating violence in what was Syria's most populous
pre-war city and biggest commercial hub has caused Geneva peace
talks overseen by De Mistura to break down.
The Syrian opposition has said it wants to see a credible
pause in violence there, as well as improved humanitarian aid
access, before peace talks can resume.
Some 590,200 people are now living in besieged areas of
Syria, according to UN figures.
Aid convoys have ground to a halt during the month of
August, and the only supplies being delivered are by air drops
to Deir al-Zor, the government-controlled city of 200,000 in the
east under siege by Islamic State, de Mistura said.
Friday will be the annual World Humanitarian Day, he noted.
"And in Syria what we are hearing and seeing is only
fighting, offensives, counter-offensives, rockets, barrel bombs,
mortars, hellfire cannons, napalm, chlorine, snipers, air
strikes, suicide bombers," he said, in reference to recent
allegations of chemical weapons attacks.
