The UN has condemned the “descent into hell” being endured by civilians in Aleppo, with the Red Cross saying nearly 20,000 people have fled a Syrian government offensive on the city in three days.
Diplomats said the UN Security Council would hold an emergency meeting yesterday in New York on the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, where the army has captured a third of the opposition-controlled east in the past few days.
The fighting has prompted an exodus of terrified civilians, many fleeing empty-handed into remaining rebel-held territory, or crossing into government-controlled west Aleppo or Kurdish districts.
Photo: AFP
Up to 20,000 people have fled the regime offensive in the past 72 hours, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
Red Cross spokeswoman Krista Armstrong said the figure was an estimate and the situation remained fluid as “people are fleeing in different directions.”
East Aleppo has been under government siege for more than four months, with international aid stocks exhausted and food supplies running low.
UN World Food Programme spokeswoman Bettina Luescher said civilians were enduring a “slow motion descent into hell.”
“France and its partners cannot remain silent in the face of what could be one of the biggest massacres of a civilian population since World War II,” French Ambassador to the UN Francois Delattre said.
Government forces have advanced swiftly in their two-week operation, capturing all of the city’s northeast in a major blow to the opposition.
The loss of their east Aleppo stronghold would be the worst defeat for the rebels since the conflict erupted more than five years ago.
The opposition has steadily lost territory to government forces bolstered by a Russian military intervention since September last year.
Moscow says it is not involved in the Aleppo offensive, but a Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman said Syrian government forces had seized “nearly half the territory occupied by rebels in east Aleppo in recent years.”
“The careful and long-planned operations by the Syrian army have radically changed the situation over the past 24 hours,” General Igor Konashenkov said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed his government to set up mobile field hospitals around Aleppo, the Kremlin said.
A hospital able to serve up to 250 patients a day was to be sent to the Aleppo region yesterday morning, Russian reports said.
More than 250 civilians have been killed in the government’s assault on east Aleppo since Nov. 15, including nearly 30 children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The monitor said at least 10 civilians were killed in a strike in Bab al-Nayrab District on Tuesday, and it reported ongoing clashes in the Shaar and Tariq al-Bab neighborhoods.
It said the civilian exodus continued on Tuesday from neighborhoods now on the front line.
A correspondent said families were forced to sleep in the streets or in unfurnished apartments left empty by fleeing residents.
Amnesty International urged the Syrian authorities to protect civilians in recaptured areas.
“Given the Syrian government’s long and dark history of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances on a mass scale, it is even more crucial that civilians are protected in newly captured areas of Aleppo city,” Amnesty International deputy director for campaigns Samah Hadid said in Beirut.
Save the Children warned the assault was separating families and leaving thousands, including children, homeless and at risk.
“With so many people trapped in an ever-shrinking space, children can be little more than sitting targets for bombs,” Save the Children Syria director Sonia Khush said.
Meanwhile, the Turkish army said two of its soldiers were missing in Syria, where it is fighting the Islamic State group, after the Amaq news agency affiliated with the terrorist group claimed it had taken the pair hostage.
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