Anger at Assad plan

Syrian President Bashar Assad. Photo / AP

For two years, Raed Saleh, leader and spokesman of the White Helmets, a movement of 2700 local civilian volunteers, has been digging Syria's inhabitants out of its rubble.

Today, he is speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, where leaders will gather with a new policy in force: to keep President Bashar al-Assad in place, for the time being.

It is a policy, Saleh believes, that will worsen the flood of his countrymen pouring across Europe.

"Why are refugees going to Europe? Because of a lack of hope, because of a lack of a vision for a peaceful future," he told the Daily Telegraph.

"While the killing machine of Bashar al-Assad continues to win time, and the face of the international community is turned only to Islamic State [Isis], people will continue to escape death in Syria."

Calculations vary, but the most reliable estimates, cited by Irin, the UN-linked news agency, suggest the Assad regime has been responsible for three quarters of all civilian deaths this year, and seven times as many as Isis.

Between a fifth and a quarter of all civilian deaths - estimates range from 85,000 to 110,000 over the course of the war - have come from a single cause: bombing by the regime's air force and helicopters.

Saleh, who sold electronics before the war, joined a squad of volunteer rescue workers after witnessing a bomb attack in 2013. He says the group has rescued more than 24,500 people from bombed buildings across Syria.

He blames Assad for the rise of Isis, saying it is "the tail of the snake, where Assad is the head. If you just bomb one, you will only hit the tail and you won't kill the snake".