Geneva: The United Nations said on Tuesday it had reports that Syrian government troops and allied Iraqi militias had killed civilians in eastern Aleppo, including 82 people in four different neighborhoods in the last few days.
The Syrian army and its allies have taken full control over all the Aleppo districts abandoned by rebels during their retreat in the city, a Syrian military source said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. human rights office, said he feared retribution against thousands of civilians believed to be holed up in a "hellish corner" of less than a square kilometer of opposition-held areas. Its capture was imminent, he said.
"In all, as of yesterday (Monday) evening we have received reports of pro-government forces killing least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children, in 4 different neighborhoods - Bustan al-Qasr, al-Fardous, Al-Kalasah and al-Saliheen," Colville told a news briefing, naming the Iraqi armed group Harakat al-Nujaba as reportedly involved in the killings.
"The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes" Colville said. "There could be many more".
"The only way to alleviate the deep foreboding and suspicion that massive crimes may be under way both within Aleppo, and in relation to some of those who fled or were captured, whether fighters or civilians, is for there to be monitoring by external bodies, such as the UN," Colville said.
France on Tuesday called on the United Nations to use all its mechanisms to determine what was happening in Aleppo, warning Russia that it risked being complicit in acts of "vengeance and terror" taking place in the Syrian city.
Jens Laerke, U.N. humanitarian spokesman said that it looked like "a complete meltdown of humanity in Aleppo".
The UN statement came a day after UNICEF said that all children in Syria's battered Aleppo are suffering from trauma after enduring some of the worst violence in their country's war.
"All children in Aleppo are suffering. All are traumatized," Radoslaw Rzehak, UNICEF’s field office head in Aleppo, told AFP inside the devastated city.
"I have never seen in my life such a dramatic situation [as] what is happening to children in Aleppo," said Rzehak, who has been working with UNICEF for the past 15 years.
Earlier today Russia rejected a call by the United States for immediate truce in war-hit city.
Russia, which is "assisting" the Syrian government's offensive to expel rebels from East Aleppo, thinks it is necessary to define in advance the corridors to be used by the rebels in leaving the besieged city, EFE news quoted Lavrov as saying in Serbian capital.
"We can coordinate this with Americans very quickly. We undertake commitments to guarantee that these corridors won't be attacked by Syrian armed forces, while Americans undertake commitments together with their regional allies to get militants' consent to leave eastern Aleppo via these safe corridors," he said.
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