12th February, 2016
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, expressed "utmost alarm" at the worsening situation around the Syrian city of Aleppo on Thursday, saying that "shocking violations and abuses" were being committed on a daily basis.
The UN estimates that 51,000 people have been displaced since the Syrian Government began an offensive around Aleppo last week and Mr Zeid said a further 300,000 were at risk of being placed under siege and that dozens of civilians have been killed since 1st February.
Condemning human rights violations, he said the warring parties in Syria were "constantly sinking to new depths, without apparently caring in the slightest about the death and destruction they are wreaking across the country". "Women and children, the elderly, the wounded and sick, the people with disabilities are being used as bargaining chips and cannon fodder day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month. It is a grotesque situation."
Mr Zeid also highlighted the situation in other parts of Syria, particularly in situations where people are in communities under siege by either pro-government or anti-government forces. In communities including Moaddamiyat al-Sham, Madaya, Deir ez-Zour, Fuah and Kafreya, people were in an "utterly desperate situation" and many people, including children, had died as a result of severe malnutrition and lack of access to medical care.
He repeated comments made by a number of UN officials over the past few weeks that the "deliberate starvation" of civilians as a method of warfare was a clear violation of international humanitarian law.
– DAVID ADAMS
