Aleppo seige a ‘historic crime’

UNHRC calls for ICC probe

THE top United Nations human rights official said yesterday that the siege and bombing of eastern Aleppo in Syria constituted “crimes of historic proportions” that had caused heavy civilian casualties amounting to war crimes.

Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, in a speech by video to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, called again for major powers to put aside their differences and refer the situation in Syria to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Meanwhile, the UN hopes to carry out the first medical evacuations from Aleppo this weekend, if a “humanitarian pause” in the Syrian army’s Russianbacked assault holds.

Despite a drop in violence after the unilateral ceasefire took effect on Thursday, there was little sign civilians were heeding calls to leave opposition-held areas of the city, and Russia accused the rebels of intimidation. East Aleppo, which the rebels captured in 2012, has been under siege by the army since mid-July and has faced devastating bombardment by the government and its ally Russia since the launch of an offensive to retake the whole city on September 22.

Nearly 500 people have been killed, more than a quarter of them children, since the assault began. More than 2 000 civilians have been wounded.

The scale of the casualties has prompted outrage in the West, with Washington saying the bombardment amounted to a possible war crime.

The Syrian army has opened eight corridors across the front line for the more than 250 000 civilians in rebel-held areas to leave but so far almost none have taken up the offer.

There has been no air or artillery bombardment of east Aleppo since the ceasefire began but sporadic clashes have continued on the front line, some of them near the evacuation corridors.

Food rations will run out by the end of October, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned.

The UN has been criticised by the Syrian opposition for focusing more on enabling people to leave than providing relief supplies to allow them to stay. — Reuters-AFP