'There is nowhere to go'
The warning from the UN envoy could not have been starker: Pounded by a near-daily barrage of air strikes, Aleppo would be totally destroyed by Christmas unless the United Nations stopped the carnage.
During the weeks that followed Staffan de Mistura's distress call in early October, there was a global outcry as Syrian forces, backed by Russia, tightened their grip on the city, but little action at the United Nations.
Two Russian vetos at the Security Council blocked attempts to halt the bombing and spare civilians as UN statements professing that there can be no military solution to the devastating five-year war rang hollow.
With the fall of Aleppo, the world body founded on the post-World War II promise of "Never Again" is once again facing questions about its ability to confront conflicts.
"The fall of Aleppo is the single greatest crisis for the UN since the Iraq war," says Richard Gowan, a UN expert at the European Council on Foreign Affairs. "It has created an enormous crisis of trust in the Security Council."
Diplomats point the finger of blame at Russia, accused of providing diplomatic cover while its Syrian ally waged an all-out assault on Aleppo.
But there are also recriminations against Western powers, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the broader UN system that has been unable to bring humanitarian aid to one million Syrians under siege.
Alarmed by UN reports that Syrian militias had executed dozens of civilians in east Aleppo, France, Britain and the United States called for observers to be dispatched to monitor the situation on the ground.
It took four days for the council to finally adopt a resolution on deploying UN observers and two days later, the teams had yet to set foot in the eastern districts of Aleppo.
Ban, who steps down next week after 10 years as UN chief, has defended the world body's handling of the Syria crisis even though the war escalated under this watch.
In a recent interview with AFP, Ban said divisions among world powers, regional players and among Syrians themselves had created a "perfect storm" that allowed the war to rage on, killing more than 310,000 people.
After nearly six years of conflict, there is no international investigation under way of war crimes in Syria after Russia, backed by China, used its veto in 2014 to block a request to the International Criminal Court.
Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has remarked that were it not for Moscow's military intervention, "the black flags" of the Islamic State group "would be flying over Damascus."
For many diplomats, Aleppo joins Rwanda and Srebrenica on the list of UN failures, marking another low in the world body's 71-year history.
The "comparisons between Aleppo, Rwanda and Srebrenica tell you everything about the magnitude of the current catastrophe," says Martin Edwards, professor of diplomacy at Seton Hall University.
"There is nowhere to go but up."
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