Executions reported as Aleppo battle nears end

Beirut / AFP

The UN said on Tuesday it had credible reports of pro-government forces in Syria’s Aleppo executing dozens of civilians including women and children as the crucial battle for the city neared its end.
The UN human rights office said at least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children, had been killed in recent days.
UN rights office spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva the killings had taken place in four neighbourhoods of east Aleppo “most likely” in the last 48 hours.
“We have also been informed that pro-government forces have been entering civilian homes and killing those individuals found inside,” Colville said.
Some civilians trying to flee the fighting “were reportedly caught and killed on the spot and others were arrested,” he said.
The accusations came as President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces stood poised to overrun the last pocket of rebel territory in east Aleppo, dealing the biggest blow to opposition fighters in more than five years of civil war.
In Aleppo overnight, government supporters loosed rounds of celebratory gunfire in the air and a military source told AFP: “We’re living the final moments before victory.”
Meanwhile in remaining rebel territory, residents spoke of their fears of capture by government troops and allied forces and chilling accounts emerged of bodies lying in the streets.

‘Our fate is sealed’
Ibrahim Abu al-Leith, a spokesman for the White Helmets rescue service operating in opposition areas, said regime forces were only 200 metres (yards) from his position in a rebel-held neighbourhood.
“Our fate is sealed. Why would we hide, it won’t do us any good. We will either die or be captured,” he said.
Other witnesses described scenes of carnage in rebel areas, with bodies lying amid the rubble of city streets, as desperate residents sat on pavements with no shelter to find.
“There are dozens of bodies in the streets because of the intense bombardment by regime forces,” Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Abdel Rahman, whose Britain-based group has for years monitored the conflict in Syria, said he was unable to confirm the reports of civilians being executed or other alleged massacres.
But UN chief Ban Ki-moon had in a statement late Monday expressed alarm “over reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians, including women and children, in recent hours in Aleppo.”
Jan Egeland, head of the UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, said the Assad regime and its ally Moscow would be responsible for any atrocities carried out by militia forces allied with government troops.
“Syria & Russia are accountable for any and all atrocities that the victorious militias in Aleppo are now committing!” Egeland said on Twitter.
He called for an urgent ceasefire “to let us evacuate wounded and other vulnerable groups from Aleppo’s
rubble.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that thousands of civilians were at risk.

‘Last chance to save lives’
“As the battle reaches new peaks and the area is plunged into chaos, thousands with no part in the violence have literally nowhere safe to run,” it said.
“This may be the last chance to save lives.” Syria’s army has taken more than 90 percent of the territory once held by rebel fighters in east Aleppo, after launching an all-out offensive last month to retake control of the entire city.
Aleppo, a cultural and economic hub in northern Syria second only to Damascus in importance, had been split between a rebel-controlled east and government-held west since 2012.
Retaking control of the entire city will be a huge victory for Assad and leave his regime in control of all five of Syria’s main cities.
As of early Tuesday rebel fighters were reported to be confined to just a handful of neighbourhoods, including Mashhad and Sukkari.