UN Warns Two Million Trapped In Aleppo, Syria
The United Nations (UN) has warned that millions of people could be trapped in Syria’s strategic northwestern city of Aleppo as government forces and rebel militants are gearing up for a decisive battle for the city.
The UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Syria, Yacoub el Hillo, and the UN regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, Kevin Kennedy, said in a statement released on Monday that two million residents of Aleppo are living in fear of besiegement.
The city is located some 355 kilometers (220 miles) north of the capital, Damascus.
The pair also demanded a “humanitarian pause” in the fierce clashes, stating, “The UN stands ready to assist the civilian population of Aleppo, a city now united in its suffering.”
The statement added, “At a minimum, the UN requires a full-fledged ceasefire or weekly 48-hour humanitarian pauses to reach the millions of people in need throughout Aleppo and replenish the food and medicine stocks, which are running dangerously low.”
The UN statement came on the same day that the head of the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, said some 2,000 fighters have joined the ranks of government troops in Aleppo.
Pro-government Arabic-language al-Watan daily reported that the army had received “the necessary military reinforcements to launch the battle,” adding, “A crucial attack on the terrorists was imminent… and inevitable.”
Meanwhile, the foreign-backed militants in Aleppo are seeking assistance from the rebel militants operating in other parts of Syria.
Syrian military sources say scores of rebel fighters have been killed and many others sustained injuries as a result of heavy fighting in several neighborhoods of Aleppo over the past few days.
A large number of vehicles as well as considerable volumes of ammunition belonging to Takfiri militants have also been destroyed.
Syria has been gripped by a vicious civil war since March 2011. The United Nations (UN)’s Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
Back in 2014, the UN said it would no more update its official death toll for Syria because it could not verify the figures that it received from various sources.
Aleppo has been controlled by terrorists, ALNusra (now has changed its names only) and other groups, for four years. Many people have been killed by those terrorists. USA and UN have never said anything and never mentioned a humanitarian cause for helping the people from the terrorists. Now, when the Arab Syrian Army has been putting pressure to destroy these terrorist organizations in Aleppo, US imperialism and the UN have been losing on their investments in these terrorist organizations to topple President AL Assad. It follows, they have started asking about the humanitarian cause in order to intervene and to bomb Syria to destroy the regime for helping the terrorist organizations. But all people know that will not be successful, because Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Russia want the President Bashar to stay in office. It is really very bad for world imperialism and President Obama that the world now knows that US and Europe have been supporting terrorism in Syria, Iraq, and other countries. That is, the war on terror has been shown to be the war on poor countries to destroy their regimes and to bring chaos to these countries in order to loot their economic resources. People can see what has happened in Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Afghanistan. These countries have been suffering from terrorism, and chaos has become the norm after US imperialist invasions. That is, people have been killed by terrorist organizations supported by US and Europe and other wealthy countries who are puppets to world imperialism. In numbers, President Bush, PM Blair, PM Cameron, and President Obama have killed more than two million innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and Yemen. Is this the humanitarian way?