Executions as battle nears end
Gruesome reports emerge as Syria regime celebrates victory
THE United Nations said yesterday it had credible reports of pro-government forces in Syria’s Aleppo executing dozens of civilians, including women and children, as the crucial battle for the city neared its end.
The UN human rights office said at least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children, had been killed in recent days.
UN rights office spokesman Rupert Colville said the killings had taken place in four neighbourhoods of east Aleppo most likely in the last 48 hours.
“We have also been informed that pro-government forces have been entering civilian homes and killing those individuals found inside,” he said.
Some civilians trying to flee were reportedly caught and killed on the spot and others were arrested.
The accusations came as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces stood poised to overrun the last pocket of rebel territory in east Aleppo, dealing the biggest blow to opposition fighters in more than five years of civil war.
In Aleppo overnight, government supporters loosed rounds of celebratory gunfire in the air and a military source said: “We’re living the final moments before victory.”
Meanwhile, in remaining rebel territory, residents spoke of their fears of capture by government and allied forces and chilling accounts emerged of bodies lying in the streets.
A spokesman for the White Helmets rescue service operating in opposition areas, Ibrahim Abu al-Leith, said regime forces were 200m from his position in a rebel-held neighbourhood.
“Our fate is sealed . . . We will either die or be captured,” he said.
Other witnesses described scenes of carnage in rebel areas, with bodies lying amid the rubble of city streets, as desperate residents sat on pavements with no shelter to find.
“There are dozens of bodies in the streets because of the intense bombardment by regime forces,” Rami Abdel Rahman, of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said
He was unable to confirm the reports of civilians being executed.
But UN chief Ban Ki-moon had in a statement late on Monday expressed alarm over reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians.
The head of the UN-backed humanitarian task force for Syria, Jan Egeland, called for an urgent ceasefire to allow evacuations from Aleppo.
The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that as the battle reaches new peaks and the area is plunged into chaos, thousands with no part in the violence have nowhere safe to run.
Syria’s army has taken more than 90% of the territory once held by rebel fighters in east Aleppo.