\n A unilateral Russian-declared ceasefire for Syria's Aleppo ended on Friday evening, marred by rebel fire on evacuation routes and with no sign any civilians or rebels left besieged neighbourhoods.\n<\/p>\n
\n The 10-hour \"humanitarian pause\" was announced by Damascus ally Russia as an attempt to \"prevent senseless casualties\".\n<\/p>\n
\n But the ceasefire for the city's rebel-held east came to an end at 7:00 pm local time (1700 GMT) without anyone using the eight evacuation passages.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We did not record a single civilian or fighter leaving the eastern districts,\" said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that battlefronts across the city were quiet.\n<\/p>\n
\n AFP correspondents on both sides of the Bustan al-Qasr crossing said no one was seen using the evacuation corridor.\n<\/p>\n
\n A similar three-day pause last month ended with only a handful of residents quitting the besieged east, home to more than 250,000 people.\n<\/p>\n
\n Once Syria's economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been devastated by fighting since the rebels seized the east of the city in 2012, turning its historic heart into a battlefield.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rebels and allied jihadists launched a bid to break the government's three-month siege a week ago, stepping up their attacks on Thursday hours before the ceasefire came into force.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rebel rocket fire on Friday hit the Castello road, which leads north out of opposition-controlled territory in eastern Aleppo, state media and the Observatory said.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Worthless' ceasefire -\n<\/p>\n
\n Rocket fire lightly wounded two Russian servicemen monitoring the ceasefire, the Russian defence ministry said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Syrian state media said a Syrian reporter was also wounded.\n<\/p>\n
\n The attack forced Moscow to temporarily cut a live video feed of the area, which had shown barrels painted with the Syrian flag next to a large photograph of President Bashar al-Assad propped up by sandbags.\n<\/p>\n
\n Another featured waiting ambulances while the third -- which appeared to be filmed from a drone -- showed a line of green coaches.\n<\/p>\n
\n Civilians in east Aleppo, who have faced weeks of devastating bombardment by the government and Russia, have expressed scepticism about safe passage offers.\n<\/p>\n
\n The rebels dismissed the latest ceasefire as a ploy by Moscow to deflect international criticism over the high civilian death toll from its bombing campaign.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"This announcement is worthless... We don't trust the Russians or any of their cheap initiatives,\" said Yasser al-Youssef, a politburo member of the Nureddin al-Zinki rebel brigade in Aleppo.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rebels have so far captured the Dahiyet al-Assad neighbourhood and the village of Minyan west of Aleppo.\n<\/p>\n
\n But they have come under criticism for shelling western government-held districts.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rocket fire on the southern regime-held district of Ramussa on Friday killed two people and wounded seven, state media said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Nearly 70 civilians have been killed in rebel fire into government-held areas during the offensive, according to the Britain-based Observatory.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Body bags to keep warm' -\n<\/p>\n
\n The situation for civilians in Aleppo is growing increasingly dire, with the United Nations warning that \"food supplies in eastern Aleppo city will run out in mid-November\".\n<\/p>\n
\n In a report distributed on Friday, the UN's humanitarian coordination agency said there were so few supplies in east Aleppo's hospitals that \"patients are using body bags to keep warm\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Medical facilities in east Aleppo are under severe strain, with many rendered out of service by repeated bombardment and others suffering shortages of equipment.\n<\/p>\n
\n UN agencies tried but failed to organise convoys for severely ill or wounded residents of Aleppo during last month's pause, and did not attempt evacuations during Friday's ceasefire.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The UN will not be involved in any way in the evacuation of civilians from east Aleppo related to this announcement,\" said David Swanson, a spokesman for the UN humanitarian office.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Medical evacuations can only take place if parties to the conflict take all the necessary measures to provide an enabling environment, which hasn't happened,\" he told AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We remain very, very concerned about the humanitarian situation in east Aleppo. There have been no humanitarian supplies reaching the east of the city since early July.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Rights group Amnesty International also criticised the limited ceasefire, saying it was \"no substitute for unfettered and impartial humanitarian access and ensuring protection of civilians\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Hundreds of people have been killed in the rebel-held sector since the army began an offensive to recapture it in September.\n<\/p>\n
\n The death toll has drawn international condemnation of both Damascus and Moscow. The European Union said Russian actions \"may amount to war crimes\".\n<\/p>\n
\n More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict erupted with anti-government protests in March 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A unilateral Russian-declared ceasefire for Syria's Aleppo ended on Friday evening, marred by rebel fire on evacuation routes and with no sign any civilians or rebels left besieged neighbourhoods. The 10-hour \"humanitarian pause\" was announced by Damascus ally Russia as an attempt to \"prevent senseless casualties\". But the ceasefire for the city's rebel-held east came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-30502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n