“Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse in Syria, they have”, British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said.
Advertisement
“If people are serious about wanting a peaceful outcome to this war, then they should cease and desist bombing innocent women and children, cease cutting off water and laying siege in medieval terms to an entire community, and work with the global community in order to be able to bring peace to people who are starving – literally starving, but also starving for the possibilities of a future without chlorine dropping on them out of the sky, barrel bombs, and indiscriminate bombing”.
“I’ve never seen so many people dying in once place”, he said from a hospital in the city.
The meeting was called by Britain, France and the United States to turn up the pressure on Russian Federation to rein in its ally Syria and halt the intense bombing campaign on Aleppo.
At least seven people – six of them children – were killed in a barrel bombing of opposition-held eastern Aleppo Sunday, an activist group reported, as the Syrian government continues its furious offensive in the wake of a collapsed ceasefire.
The monitor said at least 19 children were among those killed in the assault, which has included missile strikes, barrel bomb attacks, and artillery fire.
Jets have also continued to hit residential parts of the town, rebels and residents said.
“All night long they were dropping cluster bombs”.
“Today the streets of my neighbourhood are full of unexploded cluster bombs”.
“It tore him apart.it was an very bad scene”. We were able to protect it, but the bombing burnt our vehicles’. “We’re civilians here, we’re not carrying weapons, and we’re besieged, we have no way to escape”. They are widely believed to be accompanied by Russian air strikes.
More than 250,000 civilians are trapped in the rebel-held areas in the east of Aleppo.
The eastern portion of the city has been under near-continuous siege since mid-July, prompting food and fuel shortages.
The Syrian Arab Red Crescent, which is managing the convoys jointly with the United Nations and the ICRC, says 53 trucks have reached Madaya and Zabadani, besieged by pro-government forces, and 18 trucks have reached Kafraya and Foua, which are besieged by rebels. The army says it is only targeting militants.
More than 300,000 people have been killed and over half the country displaced since the war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
Washington and Moscow brokered a ceasefire after weeks of negotiations earlier this month, but the agreement collapsed on Monday.
The United States and its European allies said Saturday it was up to Moscow to save the truce.
The statement said it was up to Russian Federation to prove it was “willing and able to take extraordinary steps to salvage diplomatic efforts to restore a cessation of hostilities” on the ground, and condemned the Syrian government’s “public denunciation” of the ceasefire. Russian Federation stresses that rooting out terrorist groups is key to securing peace, while the USA has blamed the Syrian government for the ceasefire’s failure, and called for military aircraft to be grounded.
“The foreign minister of Great Britain Boris Johnson said in a broadcast of the BBC that Russian Federation is guilty of protracting civil war in Syria and, possibly, of committing war crimes in the form of air attacks on convoys with humanitarian aid”.
“Our belief in victory is even greater now that the Syrian Arab army is making great strides in its war against terrorism”, Walid Muallem told the UN General Assembly.
Advertisement
A monitoring group says Syrian rebels have retaken an area in Aleppo that fell to government forces the day before, extending a punishing stalemate in the contested northern city.
