UN rights chief: Aleppo now is ‘slaughterhouse’

Official calls for war crimes investigation into Syria atrocities.

GENEVA — The top U.N. human rights official Friday called the weeks-long bombardment and siege of rebel-held parts of Aleppo “crimes of historic proportions” that had turned the ancient Syrian city into a “slaughterhouse.”

As a “humanitarian pause” in attacks, declared unilaterally by Russia, entered a second day — and as the besieged rebel-held eastern side of the city received a respite from the Syrian and Russian airstrikes that have devastated the area — the United Nations official, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, called for a war crimes investigation.

The comments by al-Hussein, the high commissioner for human rights, came in a videotaped statement at the opening of a special session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The 47-member council later adopted, 24-7, a resolution that called for an immediate end to the bombing of Aleppo.

The resolution also asked the U.N. commission of inquiry monitoring human rights in Syria to investigate events in the city, identifying those responsible for war crimes and other violations.

Sixteen council members abstained.

Hours later, in a separate U.N. attempt to establish accountability for atrocities in the Syria war, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced a panel to investigate the Sept. 19 destruction of a 31-truck humanitarian aid convoy in northern Syria. The convoy was the first attempt to help desperate civilians under a weeklong cease-fire negotiated by Russia and the United States that quickly collapsed.

In a statement, Ban’s office said the inquiry would be led by Lt. Gen. Abhijit Guha of India, a veteran peacekeeping official, and “ascertain the facts of the incident.” Russia and Syria have denied responsibility.

Opposition groups have shelled government-controlled civilian areas of western Aleppo, but an overwhelming majority of civilian casualties have come from Russian and Syrian airstrikes on the rebel-held eastern areas, al-Hussein said.

“No hypothetical advantage in global gamesmanship could possibly outweigh this pain and horror,” he said.

“Every party to the conflict should know they will be held accountable for the international crimes they commit,” he added, urging the Security Council to promptly refer the conflict to the International Criminal Court.

Britain and the United States, among other countries, had called the session to increase international pressure for a halt to hostilities in Syria.

Aleppo is a major prize in the five-year Syrian war and the crux of a dispute between Russia, which backs the Syrian government, and the United States, which supports some rebel groups. Russia has long demanded that the United States force the groups it supports to separate themselves from fighters for the Levant Conquest Front, the al-Qaida-associated group once called the Nusra Front.

The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has offered to personally escort the Nusra fighters, whom he says number several hundred among about 8,000 rebels, to the insurgent-held province of Idlib if the government allows the other fighters and civilians to stay in eastern Aleppo and govern themselves.

SYRIAN CIVIL DEFENSE WHITE HELMETS / VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS Rescue workers try to remove a boy Monday stuck in the debris of a building in the Qaterji neighborhood of rebelheld eastern Aleppo, Syria, following an airstrike.