UN fears for hundreds of thousands in Aleppo
Hundreds of thousands of civilians could be cut off from food if Syrian government forces encircle rebel-held parts of Aleppo, the United Nations said yesterday, warning of a massive new flight of refugees from a Russian-backed assault.
Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air strikes and Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, have launched a major offensive in the countryside around Aleppo, which has been divided between government and rebel control for years.
The assault to surround Aleppo, once Syria's biggest city with 2 million people, amounts to one of the most important shifts of momentum in the five year civil war that has killed 250,000 people and already driven 11 million from their homes.
The United Nations is worried the government advance could cut off the last link for some 300,000 civilians in rebel-held parts of Aleppo with the main Turkish border crossing, which has long served as the lifeline for insurgent-controlled territory.
Turkey, already home to 2.5 million Syrians, the world's biggest refugee population, has so far kept its frontier mostly closed to the latest wave of displaced, making it more difficult to reach them with urgently needed aid. The United Nations urged Ankara yesterday to open the border and has called on other countries to assist Turkey with aid.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said as many as a million refugees could arrive if the Russian-Syrian campaign continues. Fifty thousand people had reached Turkey's borders in the latest wave, Ankara had admitted 10,000 so far and would allow in others in a "controlled fashion", he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel accused Russia this week of bombing civilians, against a UN Security Council resolution Moscow signed up to in December. Russia says it is targeting only Islamist militants. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was no credible evidence of civilian deaths.
Meanwhile, a new NGO report yesterday said more than one million Syrians are living under siege after nearly five years of war, , warning the crisis was "far worse" than UN officials have acknowledged.
A Islamic State suicide bomber drove his car into a police officers' club in a residential quarter in central Damascus yesterday, blowing himself up and killing nine people including eight police officers. 20 people were also wounded in the attack.
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