This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

At least 11 people, including four children, have died after a block of flats collapsed in Aleppo, Syria, on Saturday, according to state media.

One child was pulled out alive from the rubble of the five-storey, war-damaged block after rescue teams worked to remove the shattered breeze blocks that had buried him, AFP photographers said.

He was the sole survivor of the collapse in the formerly rebel-held neighbourhood of Salaheddin, according to the official Sana news agency report. Saleheddin was heavily bombed before the army overran rebel districts with Russian support in late 2016.

Many of the buildings around the block that caved in still bear the scars of the ferocious four-year battle for the northern city; several are on the brink of collapse.

Washington has estimated the costs of rebuilding Syria’s devastated housing and infrastructure at between $300bn and $400bn.

But it warned last month that, while overthrowing the president, Bashar al-Assad, was no longer a US policy goal, it would contribute no reconstruction funds without fundamental reform in Damascus.