Humanitarian pause in Syria's Aleppo broken

Two Russian soldiers and a Syrian journalist were injured in Syria's Aleppo yesterday when mortar rounds struck one of the exit corridors designated for the evacuation of rebels and residents from the eastern besieged part of the city during a temporary halt in fighting announced by Russia.

For several hours into the 10-hour halt, no one approached the corridors, where webcam footage shared by the Russian Defense Ministry also showed no activities there. By early afternoon however, about four hours before the halt expired, Syrian state media said seven mortar shells from the rebel-held side of the city hit one of the corridors in the northern part of the city.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the two Russian servicemen were lightly wounded during a rebel shelling of the humanitarian corridor in the western section of the Castello road in north Aleppo.