Support NeoGAF

[User 85168]

Earlier this week, news of unprecedented Syrian and Russian airstrikes in Aleppo started to appear:

Syria and Russia Appear Ready to Scorch Aleppo

Make life intolerable and death likely. Open an escape route, or offer a deal to those who leave or surrender. Let people trickle out. Kill whoever stays. Repeat until a deserted cityscape is yours.

It is a strategy that both the Syrian government and its Russian allies have long embraced to subdue Syrian rebels, largely by crushing the civilian populations that support them.

But in the past few days, as hopes for a revived cease-fire have disintegrated at the United Nations, the Syrians and Russians seem to be mobilizing to apply this kill-all-who-resist strategy to the most ambitious target yet: the rebel-held sections of the divided metropolis of Aleppo.

First came new waves of airstrikes, Aleppo’s worst bombardment of the war. The bombings were so ferocious that the United States and Britain accused Russia of “barbarism” and “war crimes” for backing the Syrian air campaign.

More than 90 people died on Friday, and more than 100 on Saturday. At one hospital, nearly half of the 67 people treated for injuries were children. On Sunday, scores in the rebel-held districts were dead by evening.

But it was not just the volume of bombs that made the airstrikes devastating. They also hit, one by one, the systems that have kept life inching along.

Rescue workers in Aleppo reported that their cars and headquarters were among the first targets hit on Friday. The effect was instant: Now, when people are buried in rubble, no one comes. Or it takes longer for them to arrive. Relatives are again exhuming relatives with their hands.

Supplies of food and medicine are thin and intermittent. But in case anyone expected that the agreement between Russia and the United States on delivering aid would bring relief, a week ago a sustained, hours long aerial attack was carried out on one of the first convoys of United Nations aid trucks permitted to travel under that agreement.

The United States has blamed Russia and the Syrian government, which have denied involvement.

At the emergency meeting of the Security Council on Sunday, Mr. de Mistura pleaded for diplomats to halt what he called “new heights of horror,” and asked for 48-hour pauses in the fighting for evacuations and humanitarian relief. But what followed was vitriol.

The Russian side blamed the United States and its allies for unleashing terrorist groups across the Middle East, and even extolled the Syrian government’s behavior.

As the week went on, horrifying headlines and images started to show how bad this wave of attack really is:

Bombing campaign leaves Aleppo hospitals overwhelmed as U.N. meets over Syria

Unrelenting Assault on Aleppo Is Called Worst Yet in Syria’s Civil War

The volume of bombings has increased, residents and rescue workers in Aleppo have said, and incendiary weapons and heavy-duty bombs that can destroy underground shelters have been used for the first time, wreaking havoc on crowded neighborhoods.

One Syrian ambulance crew called Shafak said Sunday that half the dead it had collected over the weekend were children, according to Save the Children. Forty percent of the population in eastern Aleppo are children, Save the Children said, a statistic that helps to explain the high rates of young casualties.

Syria conflict: Aleppo evacuation corridors needed, WHO says

"We are talking about only 35 doctors left in east Aleppo to take care of hundreds of wounded people, and the number is increasing," she warned.

Many streets are now blocked by rubble, meaning ambulances cannot get through.

All of the 25 functioning or partially functioning medical centres are on the verge of complete destruction, according to the WHO.

And here we are, at the end of the week:

Over 100 Children Among 338 Killed in Aleppo Attacks This Week, W.H.O. Says

An array of groups allied with the Syrian government pressed an assault on rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Friday, as the World Health Organization said heavy bombardment of the area by Russia and Syria had killed 338 people in the last week, including more than 100 children.

With more of the city’s already limited hospitals destroyed in the latest offensive, Dr. Richard Brennan, the organization’s director of emergency response, told reporters that many of the 846 people wounded were expected to die for lack of treatment. That includes 261 children, he said.

Friday was the first anniversary of Moscow’s intervention in the Syrian civil war, an occasion that prompted a number of reports on civilian casualties in Russian airstrikes. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, put the figure at 3,189, while the independent website Airwars has said that at least 3,000 have died.

Until a few days ago, eastern Aleppo had eight working hospitals, but its two biggest medical centers came under attack this week and were no longer functioning, said Dr. Brennan of the W.H.O.

Four children died from their wounds in the last few days, Dr. Brennan said, because of a shortage of space in intensive care units.

As of two days ago, the United Nations believed that there were 35 doctors struggling to keep up with the flow of casualties but Dr. Brennan said it now believed that there were only 30. “These guys are exhausted, they are drained physically and emotionally,” he said.

 

[BKK]

Unlike the West, Russia doesn't care about "collateral damage" (they just blatantly deny it), so I'm not sure that there's any solution beyond starting WWIII which would result in millions (or billions) more deaths (might help with lowering carbon emissions though ...).

 

[Frustrated_me]

I hope Qatar, Turkey, USA and KSA stop funding the "moderate" rebels so this was can end already FFS.

 

[BKK]

I hope Qatar, Turkey, USA and KSA stop funding the "moderate" rebels so this was can end already FFS.

End by the "moderate" rebels and their civilian supporters getting slaughtered?

 

[reckless]

I hope Qatar, Turkey, USA and KSA stop funding the "moderate" rebels so this was can end already FFS.

Russia / Assad could also stop targeting civilians...

 

[Frustrated_me]

Russia / Assad could also stop targeting civilians...

Yah they could, but they won't. They have the upper hand and a huge momentum right now. For the sake of everyone, one side needs just give up this endless bloodbath.

End by the "moderate" rebels and their civilian supporters getting slaughtered?

Or you know, the "moderate" rebels can surrender Aleppo and fuck off with this war. It's clear now that they are not going to win this war, what's the point of hiding inside a city with a huge population?

 

[Stinkles]

"what's Aleppo?"

 

[orochi91]

Jesus Christ.

Russia is needlessly exacerbating this crisis.

:/

 

[BKK]

Yah they could, but they won't. They have the upper hand and a huge momentum right now. For the sake of everyone, one side needs just give up this endless bloodbath.

Or you know, the "moderate" rebels can surrender Aleppo and fuck off with this war. It's clear now that they are not going to win this war, what's the point of hiding inside a city with a huge population?

Some will fight to the death for what they believe in, the ones who didn't want to fight left for Europe. Human nature unfortunately.

 

[Kolx]

I hope Qatar, Turkey, USA and KSA stop funding the "moderate" rebels so this was can end already FFS.

You have to love the logic here. Let's not ask the one who is actually killing people to stop. Let's ask the other countries who are supporting Syrian people to stop supporting them against this dictator.

 

[Pomerlaw]

Another one who fell for the Putin propaganda.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

I hope Qatar, Turkey, USA and KSA stop funding the "moderate" rebels so this was can end already FFS.

The rebels are better than the Assad regime, by far.

 

[Shadybiz]

It's fucking terrible. These people have no food and water. And not to get too political, but it's not going to get any better with a Trump Presidency, because he admires Putin so much...he would just let him do whatever the fuck he wants to do, which is apparently to bomb civilians into oblivion.

 

[Fox Mulder]

It's fucking terrible. These people have no food and water. And not to get too political, but it's not going to get any better with a Trump Presidency, because he admires Putin so much...he would just let him do whatever the fuck he wants to do, which is apparently to bomb civilians into oblivion.

It's not getting better period. No one really cares enough to do much. Obama has been weak and ineffective on Syria as well.

Just take the L and let assad have his rubble pile.

 

[Coriolanus]

You have to love the logic here. Let's not ask the one who is actually killing people to stop. Let's ask the other countries who are supporting Syrian people to stop supporting them against this dictator.

The logic has a bit of merit. You won't get the russians to stop, that is pretty much certain. We talking about a country that will kill their own people with gusto to prevent terrorists from getting what they want.

So yeah, the other side might be a bit more reasonable.

 

[lawnchair]

It's fucking terrible. These people have no food and water. And not to get too political, but it's not going to get any better with a Trump Presidency, because he admires Putin so much...he would just let him do whatever the fuck he wants to do, which is apparently to bomb civilians into oblivion.

just out of curiosity, what's Hillary going to do to get Vlad to stop blowing people up? tell him he can't fly planes over there anymore?

 

[Gordon Shumway]

"what's Aleppo?"

A fucking shame and embarrassment..RIP.

 

[Buba Big Guns]

The rebels are better than the Assad regime, by far.

To be fair, Nusra and other similar groups are pretty much ingrained into the rebel forces at this point. It's hard to differentiate moderate rebels from the almost Isis-like ones. For Russia and Assad, regimes that have no sense of morality, that means butchering an entire city to get what they want.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

It's not getting better period. No one really cares enough to do much. Obama has been weak and ineffective on Syria as well.

Just take the L and let assad have his rubble pile.

Assad has massacred over 200k, countless in prisons treated worse than cattle, displaced over 8 million, reduced cities and basic infrastructure to rubble. He has no means or will to rebuild. This conflict will never be over as long as Assad is in power.

just out of curiosity, what's Hillary going to do to get Vlad to stop blowing people up? tell him he can't fly planes over there anymore?

Hopefully, still hoping a no-fly zone and buffer zone by the Turks for refugees.

 

[NeoBob688]

The NYTimes video of the kids is fucking horrifying. It made me cry.

 

[Shadybiz]

just out of curiosity, what's Hillary going to do to get Vlad to stop blowing people up? tell him he can't fly planes over there anymore?

Don't know. I seriously don't have an answer for that. No-fly zone would be a start. But I DO know that it's DEFINITELY not going to get any better over there if Trump is in office. This is a man who has stated that he loves war, and has asked repeatedly why he can't use nuclear weapons, and who has said that he would "blow out of the water" Iranian ships that were taunting US ships. ...TAUNTING would give him reason enough to start a war.