The Syrian government announced late Sunday it had “purged” the district of Salahhedine and inflicted “great losses” upon the rebels — , according to AFP.

Rebels fighting government forces in Syria’s Aleppo “will definitely be defeated,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem .

Meanwhile, rebels have refuted this claim with activists on the ground in Aleppo confirming that the fighting was ongoing and no government forces were inside the neighborhood of Salaheddine, one of the first to revolt against the government in the city of 3 million, AFP reports.

Also Monday, Syrian rebels seized a strategic checkpoint northwest of Aleppo after a 10-hour battle, securing them free movement between the northern city and Turkey, rebel officer General Ferzat Abdel Nasser said, according to AFP.

The government have sent reinforcements outside Aleppo and began an assault over the weekend to retake Aleppo.

At least 200,000 residents of the country’s commercial capital have fled in the past two days and many more are still trapped, according to the United Nations.

The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) on Sunday accused the government of preparing to carry out “massacres” in the northern city and pleaded for heavy weapons to enable rebels to meet the regime onslaught.

Several neighbourhoods in Aleppo where rebels are active have come under heavy government shelling, leading to high casualties among both fighters and civilians.

The London-based Observatory said more than 20,000 people, mostly civilians, have now died since the uprising against Assad’s government erupted in March 2011.

“The parties must reconsider their position and allow women, children, the elderly and the injured to leave conflict zones, without any preconditions and ensure their safety,” General Robert Mood, head of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), said in a statement issued on Sunday.

“This requires willingness on both sides to respect and protect the human life of the Syrian people,” he added.

Yesterday Gen. Mood announced that UN observers had suspended their monitoring activities owing to an intensification of armed violence across the country in recent days.

He said in today’s statement that attempts to extract civilians from the line of fire over the past week in the city of Homs have been unsuccessful.

“I call on the parties to take immediate action to ease the pain of Syrians trapped in the violence and the UN Supervision Mission in Syria stands ready to monitor their release, once the decision is taken by the parties,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Syrian forces have increased their shelling of rebel-held neighbourhoods in the central city of Homs as living conditions there deteriorate further, according to opposition activists, Al Jazeera reported.

Activist Abu Bilal in the Old City said on Sunday that the regime’s siege of several parts of Homs was “suffocating”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has urged the UN to intervene and evacuate more than 1,000 Homs families, including women and children, according to Al Jazeera.

About 300 observers are deployed in Syria, entrusted with monitoring a ceasefire and supporting the full implementation of a six-point peace plan drafted by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, which was supposed to

The UN estimates that more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria and tens of thousands displaced since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began some 16 months ago.