BEIRUT -- The Russian Defense Ministry said a 48-hour cessation of hostilities has been declared in the divided northern Syrian city of Aleppo, and activists reported a relative calm in Syria's largest city on Thursday.
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In past months, Aleppo has seen fierce fighting and bombardment, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of people on both sides of the contested city.
Russia said the truce went into effect after midnight Wednesday. Several similar truces have been declared in the city in recent months.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the city was calm early Thursday but that government warplanes later bombarded several rebel-held neighborhoods in Aleppo.
The Observatory said that since the latest round of violence began April 22, 627 people have been killed and about 2,900 wounded. It said the dead included 124 minors under the age of 18.
Rebels seized part of Aleppo from forces loyal to President Bashar Assad in 2012. Assad's forces, backed by Russian airstrikes, have nearly encircled rebel-held parts of the city in recent months.
Aleppo-based activist Baraa al-Halaby said opposition fighters in the city -- once Syria's commercial center -- were not informed about the truce. He said that although there is a truce, government forces as well as Russian and Syrian warplanes have been targeting the Castello road that links rebel-held areas with the rest of the country, preventing people from leaving.
"This is a joke," al-Halaby said by telephone, speaking of the alleged cease-fire. "The Castello road has been bombarded with barrel bombs for the past 12 hours."
Jan Egeland, who is leading the U.N. Syria envoy's effort to get humanitarian aid into the country, called the truce a "confidence-building measure" and a key step toward possibly getting convoys into Aleppo, "where it has been impossible to do humanitarian work in many areas for too long."
"The fighting has gotten worse. The bombing is worse. The protection needs of the civilian population are being trampled upon across the Syrian map," he told reporters in Geneva, describing the overall security situation in Syria.
"It is then very positive that a truce for 48 hours was declared today in ... Aleppo city. We need more of this, and we need it in Aleppo and we need it elsewhere because we are acutely aware that the access we have now can end tomorrow," Egeland added.
Humanitarian aid organization Mercy Corps said there has been "a significant decrease in violence, although there have been minor infringements" since the cease-fire went into effect.
"Mercy Corps is deeply appreciative of any opportunity to deliver life-saving aid safely and for the people of Syria to have relief from the seemingly endless violence of this conflict," said Xavier Tissier, North Syria director for Mercy Corps.
"However, a scant 48 hours is not enough time to ensure that the hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in east Aleppo have the food and other essentials they need," he said. "Incredibly short, one-off windows cannot be considered a serious attempt at permitting humanitarian access. We need permanent, sustained, unfettered access that the people of Aleppo can depend on."
Separately, Russia's foreign minister said Thursday that he believes the U.S. may hope to use al-Qaida's branch in Syria to unseat Assad's government.
Addressing an economic forum in St. Petersburg, Sergey Lavrov argued that the reluctance of U.S.-backed Syrian opposition groups to distance themselves from al-Qaida's branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, has been a major reason behind continued fighting.
He said the U.S. could be "playing some kind of game here, and they may want to keep Nusra in some form and use it to topple the regime."
Lavrov added that he raised the issue in a recent phone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who he said denied any such plans.
Lavrov was commenting on Kerry's warning that Washington is losing its patience with Russia, as the U.S.- and Russia-brokered cease-fire in Syria was at risk mainly because of violations by Assad's forces with Russian air support.
Information for this article was contributed by Jamey Keaten and Vladimir Isachenkov of The Associated Press.
A Section on 06/17/2016