Aleppo exodus grows
More than 50,000 Syrians have joined a growing exodus of terrified civilians from east Aleppo, a monitor said yesterday, as the UN Security Council was set for emergency talks on fighting in the city.
As government forces pressed an assault in the divided city, regime artillery fire killed at least 21 civilians in east Aleppo yesterday morning, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Civilians have poured out of the rebel-held east in recent days, with parents carrying children and the young pushing the old in wheelchairs or makeshift carts as they flee.
Some have arrived in government-held or Kurdish-controlled territory with overstuffed suitcases and bags of their possessions, but others have come empty-handed, with only the clothes on their backs.
Government forces and allied fighters have seized a third of the rebel-held east of Aleppo since they began an operation to recapture all of the battered second city just over a fortnight ago.
UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein on Wednesday said civilians in eastern Aleppo faced "a nightmare which clearly violates the most basic norms of human rights and any shred of human decency."
"Pounded by accelerating bombardment, deliberately deprived of food and medical care, many of them -- including small children -- report that they are simply waiting for death," he said.
The UN Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting later yesterday on the situation, receiving a briefing from a UN humanitarian official and the UN's peace envoy Staffan de Mistura.
Syria's opposition National Coalition said it was working with France on a draft UN resolution seeking an immediate ceasefire in Aleppo, though Russia -- a staunch ally of Damascus -- was likely to veto such a proposal.
The government's advance on the ground has been accompanied by heavy bombardment, with air strikes, barrel bomb attacks and artillery fire pounding rebel-held neighbourhoods.
The monitor says nearly 300 civilians, including 33 children, have been killed in east Aleppo since the latest government assault began on November 15.
Another 48 civilians have been killed in government-held west Aleppo, according to the monitor. State news agency SANA said eight civilians including two children had been killed in rebel fire on several districts in the city's west yesterday.
Elsewhere, Syrian state media said the Israeli air force had fired two missiles at early hours that hit near Damascus without causing casualties.
Israel, which is still technically at war with Syria, has largely limited its involvement in its neighbour's five-year conflict. But it has carried out periodic strikes in the country, often targeting Lebanon's Hezbollah.
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