There is a fair measure of confusion and far too little by way of clarity regarding the confirmed violation of the ceasefire in Syria days after the agreement was brokered by the US and Russia in Geneva. The direly tragic element of the suspected Russian aerial bombing of a UN aid convoy near Aleppo, now one of the major storm-centres of the conflict, must be that aside from the death of 21 people, the pounding has destroyed a cache of aid for thousands of people.

The world doesn’t quite expect the Kremlin to confirm the attack; nor for that matter will it be easy to concur with its denial of US claims. Suffice it to register that the rift in the lute is palpable enough. There is some evidence to indicate that the UN and Red Crescent convoy was struck by two Russian Sukhoi SU-24 jets. Small wonder that the world body, if ineffectual in its dealings with theatres of conflict, has swiftly warned that the air raid “could amount to a war crime”. The certitudes of the Geneva pact, seemingly a high watermark in the year of the fifth anniversary of the Arab Spring, have been violated and violated with impunity.

Nay more, the UN has suspended all humanitarian convoys in Syria in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Besides the resumption of hostilities, profound is the humanitarian impact of the bombing.

Confusion gets worse confounded as both the Syrian and Russian air forces fly the same aircraft. The vital piece of data, which the White House is yet to confirm, is whether it was the Syrian regime or the Russian air force or both that had conducted the raid on rebels and/or ISIS. 

The definite feature of Monday night&’s bombardment is that the truce is in tatters even before the two Big Powers had made an earnest effort to give it a try. Syria being Syria, neither Washington nor Moscow nor the presidential palace in Damascus had really expected the truce to endure. The fragility of geostrategy in a relentlessly volatile swathe of the world has been reaffirmed.

The cruel irony must be that the incident has ended the suspension of hostilities, and once again the worst sufferers are the innocents in a strife-torn land where hundreds of thousands cry out for emergency medical assistance. The suspension of such aid convoys by the UN will almost certainly exacerbate human misery. On Monday night, the convoy was said to be carrying aid to no fewer than 78,000 people. The Syrian military has announced the end of the truce, and crushed in the process is the hope of further cooperation between the super powers in the Syrian civil war.