Residents of the city of Aleppo said they were struggling to cope in a city cut off from aid and pounded by bombs, in footage from a pro-rebel media outlet said to be filmed on Thursday (September 29). <br /> <br />In the clip, uploaded online on Sunday (October 2), a man identified as a Free Syrian Army fighter and Aleppo resident, Abu al Yaman, said that the local area had been deserted. <br /> <br />"First of all, no one remains here in the area, only between two and three families are known to have remained in the area," he said. <br /> <br />"Also, water has been cut for a year and a half and the electricity has been cut. The raids are Russian ones, and in the last raid a barrel [bomb] went down, destroying the area. Between three and four people were killed and 30 others were injured here in the area, in the al-Ansari area," he added, referring to the Aleppo neighbourhood the video is said to be filmed in. <br /> <br />Yaman added that they had received no "relief bags" for five or six months. <br /> <br />The footage showed people chatting and cycling through streets filled with heaps of rubble and lined by damaged buildings. <br /> <br />Moscow and Damascus launched a campaign to recapture the rebel-held sectors of Syria's biggest city in recent weeks, abandoning a ceasefire a week after it took effect to embark on what could be the biggest battle of a nearly six-year war. <br /> <br />On Saturday, the largest trauma and intensive care centre in eastern Aleppo was badly damaged by air strikes and had to close. Two patients were killed. <br /> <br />The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), which partly supported the hospital, said the hospital had been hit seven times since July, with three attacks this week alone. <br /> <br />On Sunday the Syrian army said in a statement carried by state media that rebel fighters should vacate the eastern quarters of Aleppo city and said it would guarantee them safe passage and necessary aid.
