Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen marching through the streets of east Aleppo. Photo / AP
Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen marching through the streets of east Aleppo. Photo / AP
Dozens of people were executed by Syrian government loyalists sweeping through the remaining opposition-held districts of Aleppo, where rebels are battling for survival after being pushed into a last sliver of territory, the United Nations says.
Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the U.N. human rights agency, said his office in Geneva received reports that Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi militia have killed at least 82 civilians, entering homes and killing people "on the spot."
Others were reportedly shot as they fled. A list of names provided to the United Nations included 11 women and 13 children, he said.
Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen marching through the streets of east Aleppo. Photo / AP
The reports of summary executions of civilians and apparent house-by-house rampages reflected the chaos gripping the strategic northern city as forces supporting President Bashar Assad have pushed rebels into a patch of territory covering less than three square miles.
"A complete meltdown of humanity in Aleppo," said Jens Laerke, the U.N. humanitarian spokesman, citing reports from a Syrian volunteer rescue group known as the White Helmets.
"It's hell," he added.
A rebel defeat in Aleppo would hand a major battlefield prize to Assad. It would also usher the war into a reckoning phase, with an array of rebel forces boxed together in a single province.
International aid agencies urged government forces Tuesday to refrain from acts of revenge against people who either escape rebel-held areas or are captured there.
"Thousands of civilians' lives are in danger as front lines close in around them," said a statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross. "A deepening humanitarian catastrophe and further loss of life can be averted only if the basic rules of warfare - and of humanity - are applied."
When rebel forces seized Aleppo's eastern districts in 2012, they envisaged the area as a seat of power to rival the capital, Damascus. Its loss, now inevitable, will deal a crushing blow from which the armed groups probably would not be able to recover.
Almost a month after pro-Assad troops launched a final push to take back the city, the rebels' collapse came swiftly. By late afternoon Monday, their final districts were falling like dominoes, sparking jubilation in the streets of some government-held areas.
Rebel forces have regularly shelled west Aleppo, and the presence of an al-Qaida-linked group in Syria's armed rebellion has led many government supporters to view all militants as terrorists.
France said Tuesday that it had requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to urgently address the crisis. Francois Delattre, the French ambassador, said the session - scheduled for midday - would discuss measures to confront "the worst humanitarian tragedy of the 21st century unfolding before our eyes.".
Thousands of people have been killed in the four year-long battle for the city, once a key economic hub. Throughout much of the rebel-held east, the streets have been shattered beyond recognition. The area's health system has also been systematically attacked.
In recent weeks, more than 100,000 people have fled fighting in what remains of the rebel enclave, pouring into government and Kurdish controlled areas in recent weeks, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
Syrians who were displaced with their families from eastern Aleppo gather at the collective shelter. Photo / AP
Syrian state television has showed thousands of people streaming into the government-held part of the city clutching possessions and bags.
Fighting appeared to have slowed on Tuesday as rain and thunderstorms made it difficult for warplanes to fly.
In a video posted to the livestreaming site Periscope, Abdulkafi al-Hamdo, an English teacher, addressed viewers from an empty street. "Now it is raining. Bombs a little bit calmer," he said. "We wanted freedom. We didn't want anything else but freedom. You know, this world doesn't like freedom, it seems."
Thousands more were still trapped in the rebel-held areas, refusing to leave because they fear for their safety at the hands of government troops, said Zouhir al-Shimale, an activist who is still living under rebel control.
"We're in a very tiny area, and there are so many families stuck here," he said. "Either they can't leave because they are wanted by the government or they don't want to leave because this is their home."
A Syrian soldier carries a wounded woman in eastern Aleppo. Photo / AP
Friends who escaped to the east have told him that men who leave are being separated from the others who are fleeing and taken to serve in the depleted Syrian army, one of the reasons he is not leaving the enclave.
In Berlin, French President François Hollande repeated Western appeals for Russia to help create humanitarian aid for civilians trapped in Aleppo.
Hollande, after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said Aleppo's "humanitarian situation . . . is unacceptable."
