Ashdown’s plea to avert a new Srebrenica hell
PADDY Ashdown has begged Western leaders to stop Aleppo becoming another Srebrenica.
Referring to the 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Muslims in and around enclave in the Bosnian War, Lord Ashdown said: “There must not be another Srebrenica.”
He said: “I remember the aftermath of that, I was in Bosnia when it happened. Exactly the same conditions are now being repeated.”
Lord Ashdown, the international community’s representative in Bosnia from 2002 to 2006, urged swift action to prevent the massacre of thousands of civilians trapped in the Syrian city. UN peace keepers failed to stop the Srebrenica killings, which followed a long siege of the town by Serbian forces.
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the mass murder as the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War and admitted the UN had made “serious errors of judgment”.
Speaking to BBC’s Newsnight, Lord Ashdown said the same mistakes must not be made again, and that it was vital Western powers move quickly to protect the civilians in Aleppo.
The former Lib Dem leader said: “Is this the end for Aleppo? Yes, it is. But it must not be the end for the 50,000 people who are now trapped in four square miles.
“(The West) has leverage to do one thing now and this has got to be the first priority of the entire Western effort, those 50,000 people.
“There is nothing else that matters in the next 24 hours and 36 hours than those 50,000 people trapped on those four square miles.
“We have got to get them out and we have got to get them to safety.”
We have got to get them out and get them to safety
LORD ASHDOWN ON THE 50,000 AT RISK IN ALEPPO