Children are reportedly trapped inside a building under attack in besieged Aleppo, the UN’s children agency has said, amid reports that forces loyal to the regime of Bashar al-Assad are carrying out extrajudicial killings in areas of the city recently reclaimed from the Syrian opposition.
“According to alarming reports from a doctor in the city, many children, possibly more than 100, unaccompanied or separated from their families, are trapped in a building, under heavy attack in east Aleppo,” Unicef said in a statement. “We urge all parties to the conflict to allow the safe and immediate evacuation of all children.”
The UN’s human rights office said earlier there were reliable accounts that pro-Syrian regime forces have been entering homes in the last remaining rebel strongholds in eastern Aleppo and killing civilians on the spot.
Multiple sources told the UN that 82 civilians had been killed across four different neighbourhoods. “The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” Rupert Colville, a UN spokesman, said. “There could be many more.”
Unverified accounts of extrajudicial killings by forces loyal to Assad, as well as mass detentions and arrests, have surfaced in recent days. In one image circulated by a pro-government parliamentarian, dozens of Syrian men and boys from east Aleppo stand in a detention camp in front of Syrian army soldiers.
The Turkish foreign ministry said it was horrified and outraged by what it described as a massacre of civilians, in serious breach of international law.
“We’re seeing the most cruel form of savagery in Aleppo, and the regime and its supporters are responsible for this,” foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said, adding that his country was was negotiating with Russia to implement a ceasefire. “The wounded are not being let out and people are dying of starvation,” he told a news conference in Ankara.
Meanwhile, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Moscow was fed up of calls from the US to halt the fighting. “We are tired of hearing this whining from our American colleagues in the current administration,” he told journalists. The US was urging Russia to halt military action while doing nothing to separate moderate rebels from “terrorists” in Aleppo, he added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were corpses abandoned in the streets with residents too terrified by the shelling to bury them. Real massacres were taking place in the city, the war monitor said. Jens Laerke, a UN spokesman, said it looked like there had been a “complete meltdown of humanity” in the city.
The Red Cross has urgently appealed for civilians in east Aleppo to be protected “before it is too late”, adding that it was ready to help with evacuations if an agreement could be reached as Assad’s forces closed in on remaining opposition enclaves.
“We need to act now,” said Pawel Krzysiek, the head of communications at the international committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who is in Aleppo. “We need to depoliticise the process of protecting civilians. We need to put their lives first. And we need to do it now before it is not too late.”
Tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped in a shrinking patch of opposition territory in east Aleppo, weeks into an offensive led by Assad’s military and Iranian-backed militias, and supported by Russian airpower, that has brought them within reach of a key victory in the war.
People in east Aleppo, who have issued distress calls and appeals to the international community to rescue them from retribution, continued to post farewell messages overnight and into Tuesday morning, predicting they would either die by the ongoing bombardment or be tortured and killed if they surrendered.
“Please just tell our stories to the world, please let my son be proud of his father,” said one resident of east Aleppo in a text message.
A doctor described the situation as “beyond a tragedy”, with corpses in the street and people attempting to flee to government-held areas as a result of hunger and cold.
“We are besieged from all sides and death is coming from the air,” he said. “Remember that there was once a city called Aleppo that the world erased from the camp and from history. This is a farewell message [from a doctor] whose fate along with that of his companions is death or arrest at any moment.”
One resident said the airstrikes had subsided by Tuesday morning due to lower visibility and rain, offering a brief respite to civilians who were still on the move and seeking shelter in the rebel districts. Some of those attempting to find shelter away from the frontlines were carrying blood and IV drips as they marched through rebel-held districts, another resident said.
The Syrian army and its allies are in the “last moments before declaring victory” in Aleppo, a Syrian military source told Reuters, after rebel defences collapsed on Monday, leaving insurgents in a tiny, heavily bombarded pocket of ground.
The bombardment of rebel areas of the city continued nonstop on Monday during the day in what residents called a “doomsday” scenario.
“The battle in eastern Aleppo should end quickly. They [rebels] don’t have much time. They either have to surrender or die,” Lieut Gen Zaid al-Saleh, the head of the government’s Aleppo security committee, told reporters in the recaptured Sheikh Saeed district of the city.
The ICRC said: “Thousands of civilians’ lives are in danger as frontlines close in around them in eastern Aleppo. As the battle reaches new peaks and the area is plunged into chaos, thousands with no part in the violence have literally nowhere safe to run.
“A deepening humanitarian catastrophe and further loss of life can be averted only if the basic rules of warfare – and of humanity – are applied.”
Kareem Shaheen in Istanbul
* The Guardian. Tuesday 13 December 2016 13.46 GMT First published on Tuesday 13 December 2016 08.42 GMT:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/13/red-cross-urgent-plea-to-save-civilians-aleppo-syria
Aleppo: Assad forces within ’moments’ of retaking city amid reports of atrocities
UN chief expresses ‘grave concern’ over reports of attacks on civilians, as bombardment of rebel areas by Syrian army continued nonstop on Monday.
Residents of east Aleppo have sent out desperate messages imploring the international community to save civilians in besieged districts of the Syrian city, as forces loyal to the president, Bashar al-Assad, bear down on the remaining enclaves still controlled by the opposition.
The rebellion of Aleppo appeared to be in its death throes as Assad’s troops and Iranian-backed militias took control of the vast majority of the territory once held by the opposition, coming within sight of a crucial victory in the war that has cost tens of thousands of lives over four and a half years.
The Syrian army and its allies are in the “last moments before declaring victory” in Aleppo, a Syrian military source told Reuters, after rebel defences collapsed on Monday, leaving insurgents in a tiny, heavily bombarded pocket of ground.
The bombardment of rebel areas of the city continued nonstop on Monday.
“The battle in eastern Aleppo should end quickly. They [rebels] don’t have much time. They either have to surrender or die,” Lieutenant General Zaid al-Saleh, head of the government’s Aleppo security committee, told reporters in the recaptured Sheikh Saeed district of the city.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, expressed “grave concern” over unverified reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians, including women and children.
In a statement, Ban stressed the obligation of all parties “to protect civilians and abide by international humanitarian and human rights law. This is particularly the responsibility of the Syrian government and its allies.”
The UN humanitarian adviser on Syria, Jan Egeland, said the Syrian and Russian governments must be held responsible for any atrocities committed by militias loyal to Assad.
The situation was described as a kind of “doomsday” by one resident, Abdulkafi al-Hamdo, a teacher living in the besieged districts who has been documenting the destruction of the city online for months.
The Syrian army said it controlled 98% of eastern Aleppo, where residents said they would face death if they stayed to face bombardment by artillery shells and fighter jets or torture and disappearance if they surrendered.
“Aleppo is being destroyed and burned completely,” said Mohammad Abu Rajab, a doctor in the besieged areas of the city, in a voice message. “This is a final distress call to the world. Save the lives of these children and women and old men. Save them. Nobody is left. You might not hear our voice after this. It is the last call, the last call to every free person in this world. Save the city of Aleppo.”
The advance by Assad loyalists was preceded by some of the most intense bombardment of the war, with non-stop artillery shelling and numerous airstrikes through Sunday night and Monday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said the regime had gained control of 90% of east Aleppo after seizing the neighbourhoods of Sheikh Saeed and Saliheen.
Thousands of people had fled the fighting towards government-controlled areas, it added. Thousands more are hemmed inside a dwindling pocket of land in the face of a lightning advance by the regime and crumbling rebel lines.
The observatory’s director, Rami Abdurrahman, said more than 60 civilians and fighters were killed in rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo on Monday alone.
Al-Hamdo implored the international community to save the children remaining in east Aleppo.
“I can tweet now but I might not do it forever. please save my daughter’s life and others. this is a call from a father,” he tweeted. “Understand this. I can’t simply surrender and being captive. I am speaking out and this is a crime. I might then ask death and not got it.”
“the last massage [sic]. Thanks for everything. we shared many moments. The last tweets were from an emotiomal [sic] father. Farewell, #Aleppo,” he concluded.
A local journalist whose organisation documented civilian deaths in the city said he feared imminent arrest as the regime closed in.
“We are terrified of the invasion,” he said. “There are only five neighbourhoods left and the regime is thinking of invading what’s left of the city and arresting all of us. May God grant us that we live longer so we can meet one day.”
A nurse whose civilian father and brother were killed by artillery shells within the space of a few hours said: “I cannot leave because I’m medical staff which means a terrorist in the eyes of the regime.
“I cannot forgive. It is better that God takes my life than to live in humiliation under those who murdered most of my family and my neighbours, and destroyed my country and street and robbed my home.”
Aleppo’s eastern neighbourhoods. Photograph: George Ourfalian/AFP/Getty Images
Others who have been in touch with the Guardian in recent months did not respond to messages on Monday, as Assad’s forces swept through their neighbourhoods.
“People are under the rubble alive and no one can save them,” said Hamdo. “Some people are injured in the streets and no one can go to help them. The cries and fear of women and children [are] heard from the streets.”
The latest advances by Assad’s forces have brought them closer than ever to a major victory in the war. Aleppo, Syria’s former industrial and commercial capital, has been divided between rebel and government forces since 2012 and its fate has long been seen as a signal of the war’s momentum.
East Aleppo, which was estimated to house a quarter of a million civilians before the latest government offensive, has been under a tight siege for months. Rebel offensives to try to break the blockade have failed.
Many residents have been living in great deprivation. They have dwindling food stocks and a lack of fuel, water and electricity, and there are no functioning hospitals after they were bombed in the campaign.
On Monday, the rebels were reported to be contemplating an offer of withdrawal from Aleppo that had Russian and US backing. Reuters said that, under the terms of the deal received by some rebel officials, they would be allowed to leave bearing light arms to any area in Syria.
But Russia denied that an agreement had been reached and an opposition official contacted by the Guardian said his faction, one of the largest in Aleppo, had not received the offer. He said Russia was not interested in a deal that would spare civilians while pro-Assad forces made gains on the ground.
The rebels had proposed a five-day ceasefire to evacuate civilians and the wounded, but that was ignored by Assad and his allies.
“Let us be clear, the regime is insistent on committing a massacre in order to achieve a historic victory against its own people with Russian and Iranian aid,” said Bassam Mustafa, a member of the political office of the Noureddine al-Zenki militia group.
“Therefore, they will not accept any [offer of] safe passage. We challenge them for the thousandth time to discuss anything that is for the good of the civilians that they have been bombing with barrel bombs and chlorine.”
Even though the loss of Aleppo would be a huge blow to the opposition, which will be bereft of any major urban stronghold, there are doubts that the government will be able to consolidate its victories, which have been backed by Russian airpower, on the ground.
On Sunday, the government lost control of the historic city of Palmyra for a second time to Islamic State fighters, despite a wave of intense bombings by the Russian air force the night before.
But for the remaining residents in the rebel-held districts of east Aleppo, there are few choices left. “Doomsday, all of us are waiting, dying now in the last neighbourhood,” said Yasser, an activist in the besieged districts.
Kareem Shaheen in Istanbul
* The Guardian. Tuesday 13 December 2016 02.46 GMT First published on Monday 12 December 2016 12.20 GMT:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/12/syria-assad-forces-close-to-capturing-east-aleppo