Britain, France & US accuse Russia of Barbarism and war crimes in Syria at UN security council session

Monday, September 26, 2016

The UK and France, during an emergency security council session on the conflict in Syria on Sunday bluntly and repeatedly accused Russia of collaborating with Syria to perpetuate war crimes in Aleppo.

According to the UK, Russia has carried out widespread use of bunker-busting and incendiary bombs on the 275,000 civilians living in the rebel-held Aleppo in Syria, saying this weapons were dropped by Russian aircraft.

Russia and US had agreed to stop air attacks on Aleppo last week so that food,water, medicine and clothing could safely reach those suffering in the area but any hopes of a ceasefire were bashed last week when the UN aid convoy and warehouse were attacked viciously. 

More worryingly, the bombardment of Aleppo entered a fifth consecutive day on Monday, after 95 people were killed in the east of the city on Sunday, according to doctors with the number of wounded totaling 398, including 61 children.

“Bunker-busting bombs, more suited to destroying military installations, are now destroying homes, decimating bomb shelters, crippling, maiming, killing dozens, if not hundreds,” Matthew Rycroft, the UK ambassador to the UN, said during the emergency security council session on Syria on Sunday. 

“Incendiary munitions, indiscriminate in their reach, are being dropped on to civilian areas so that, yet again, Aleppo is burning. And to cap it all, water supplies, so vital to millions, are now being targeted, depriving water to those most in need. In short, it is difficult to deny that Russia is partnering with the Syrian regime to carry out war crimes.”

French ambassador Francois Delattre said :

 “They must not be unpunished,” he said. “Impunity is simply not an option in Syria. Aleppo is to Syria what Sarajevo was to Bosnia, or what Guernica was to the Spanish war,” the French envoy said. “this week will go down in history as the one in which diplomacy failed and barbarism triumphed”.

US ambassador Samantha Power said: “What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counter-terrorism. It is barbarism,” 

“History will not look kindly on security council members who stay silent in the face of this carnage,” 'It's time to say who is doing the bombing'

After Britain’s ambassador to the UN, Matthew Rycroft made the accusations, himself, US ambassador Samantha Power and French ambassador Francois Delattre walked out of the emergency security council session when the Syrian ambassador began speaking.

What has happened over the last three days is indescribable,” said Mohammad Abu Rajab, a doctor in one of the largest hospitals in eastern Aleppo. 

“Words fail, pictures fail, everything fails. Imagine the dead lying in the corridors, corpses and wounded and blood flowing everywhere,” he said. “We are standing before inhumanity, real massacres, extraordinary weapons whose blasts we never heard before, never heard before ever, they make the ground shake beneath our feet.”

Source: Independent/ Guardian UK/ Al Jazeera