UN envoy issues stark warning over Aleppo

As a human catastrophe is unfolding in Aleppo, a top UN envoy has pleaded with the Security Council to save the battered city's residents from being exterminated.
Photographs coming out of the besieged city tell a harrowing tale of death, destruction and misery.
There is no one to shed a tear over the cold bodies of civilians lying in the opposition-held district of Jubb Al-Qubbeh following relentless artillery fire from the regime.
If it were not for White Helmets, the bodies of 26 civilians, including children, would lie there rotting.
Elsewhere in the city, the stink of death hangs heavy in the air. “For the sake of humanity we call on — we plead — with the parties and those with influence to do everything in their power to protect civilians and enable access to the besieged part of eastern Aleppo before it becomes one giant graveyard,” said Stephen O’Brien, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
“Those parties that can’t or won’t live up to their basic obligations should know that they will one day be held accountable for their actions,” said O’Brien.
Women and children in woolens scavenging for food can be seen traveling to nowhere. 
Hospitals are not functioning after repeated military strikes and an estimated 25,000 people have taken dangerous escape routes out of eastern Aleppo since Saturday alone, said O’Brien, speaking to a special Security Council session by video-link from London.
O’Brien said he faced the persistent question as he traveled — “Why on Earth can the Security Council not come together to unite to put a stop to this suffering?”
Britain’s Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said he had a simple answer to O’Brien’s question on why the Security Council could not act — Russia.
He accused Russia of supporting “a deliberate act of starvation and a deliberate withholding of medical care.”
“The Syrian regime and Russia have been executing a plan that has now laid one million people under siege. And executing is an all too appropriate word,” he said.
US Ambassador, Samantha Power, urged the Security Council to pass a resolution sponsored by Egypt, New Zealand and Spain that would mandate a 10-day military halt to allow humanitarian supplies to enter Aleppo.
Meanwhile, a top Russian diplomat has criticized the Turkish president’s comments about Assad as contradicting all international agreements on Syria.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that the Turkish Army entered Syria in order to topple Assad, who is backed by Russia.

Source: Arab News