ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—The United Nations has warned that over two million people in Syria’s besieged city of Aleppo risk coming under total siege, and called for a “humanitarian pause” and access to the city to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians there.
“The UN stands ready to assist the civilian population of Aleppo, a city now united in its suffering,” said the UN’s top humanitarian official for Syria, Yacoub El Hillo, and regional coordinator Kevin Kennedy, on Monday in a statement.
Included in the two million estimate is the 275,000 Syrians in Aleppo already trapped in the city’s opposition-held east which has been under regime siege for weeks.
Opposition forces managed to break the siege this week leading to more intensified regime, and Russian airstrikes. Civilians there cannot escape because of the ongoing clashes, strikes and the fact militant groups in the city will not allow them to leave.
“At a minimum, the UN requires a full-fledged ceasefire or weekly 48-hour humanitarian pauses to reach the millions of people in need throughout Aleppo and replenish the food and medicine stocks, which are running dangerously low,” the statement added.
The statement also condemned the usage of siege tactics in Aleppo.
“When used to intentionally deprive people of food and other items essential to their survival, siege tactics constitute a war crime,” it said.
The UN call resonates with a similar call from the United States for an end to the use of siege by the regime as a tactic of war.
“We call on Assad regime to lift its deadly siege of all cities & towns where it is using these barbaric starve or surrender tactics,” US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said in a tweet last week.
