The UN’s chief humanitarian official said the people of Aleppo are facing a humanitarian catastrophe worse than anything witnessed so far in Syria’s brutal five-year war.
Stephen O’Brien made the remarks to the UN security council on Thursday as Russia rejected calls to halt its bombing campaign on eastern Aleppo, saying it might consider a 48-hour humanitarian “pause” instead.
“Let me be clear: east Aleppo this minute is not at the edge of the precipice,” O’Brien said. “It is well into its terrible descent into the pitiless and merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed in Syria.”
O’Brien warned that the health sector in eastern Aleppo is on the very verge of total collapse, adding that hundreds of critical medical evacuations are urgently required.
O’Brien stressed that the only remaining deterrent “to stop this deliberate, gratuitous carnage of lives lost and smashed” is accountability and ending “the culture of impunity.”
President of the Syrian Coalition Anas Alabdah on Thursday said that the Assad regime and its allies are committing heinous war crimes in Aleppo and are seeking to obliterate this historic city.
Alabdah slammed the international community’s failure to shoulder its responsibilities, especially with regards to the protection of civilians. He reiterated calls on Friends of the Syrian people to take a firm and clear position of the brutal attacks by the Assad regime and its allies. (Source: Syrian Coalition + Agencies)
