Aleppo reels under onslaught

BEIRUT: Rebel-held neighborhoods of Syria’s second city Aleppo, which came under renewed army attacks with artillery and mortars yesterday, are struggling with severe food shortages, a local activist warned.
“The regime prevents food from reaching the liberated areas (under rebel control). Residents are forced to smuggle products from neighborhood to neighborhood,” Barra, an activist in the opposition bastion of Sakhur, said.
“When I buy something, I have to go to several grocery stores and supermarkets before finding what I want: eggs, yogurt, rice, childrens’ milk are almost nonexistent. Markets are almost empty,” he said via Skype.
“It’s difficult to find gas canisters also ... It’s a real siege, collective punishment,” said the activist. “If the regime could deprive us of air, it would.”
According to Barra, “garbage is everywhere and people are trying to clean what they can, but the bombing is so intense.”
In Salaheddin district, a rebel was killed in clashes with government forces, while a civilian was killed by sniper fire in the southern area of Sukari, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Britain-based monitoring group watchdog also reported army shelling of Izaa, next to Saif Al-Dawla in the southwest of the city. Elsewhere in Aleppo province, two girls were killed in shelling, while four soldiers died in an attack on an army checkpoint.
In Damascus, fighting broke out in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk overnight between Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) members and rebels, the Observatory said.
The Syrian Revolution General Council, a network of opposition activists, said panicked residents fled the camp in droves to escape the fighting.
On Tuesday, the Observatory reported fierce bombardment by government troops of the Damascus suburb of Deir Al-Asafir.
In the central city of Hama, regime forces closed off roads to Al-Fraya neighborhood and stormed the area, leaving 12 men dead including a military defector, it said. The violence followed a bloody day on Monday when 153 people were killed nationwide, according to the Observatory.
The watchdog says more than 26,000 people have been killed overall in Syria since the revolt against President Bashar Assad’s rule broke out 17 months ago, more than two-thirds of them civilians.