A message from the people of Aleppo to the world
Updated 2149 GMT (0549 HKT) November 24, 2016
(CNN)They stand tall and proud in front of a crumbling skyline, the exhaustion of their cause written on their faces.
Some
wear jeans and T-shirts and sneakers. Others wear the uniforms of their
trades: hospital scrubs, or a hard hat. The men hold Syrian opposition
flags and a woman clutches a baby.
They are a coalition of activists -- doctors, educators and civil servants -- from Aleppo's beleaguered rebel-held areas.
In
a rare video message in English, they issue a desperate plea to the
international community -- specifically, the US-led coalition -- to
airdrop humanitarian aid.
An
English-speaking Syrian doctor known as Dr. Hamza al-Khatib stands in
the middle of the group, reading aloud from a piece of paper.
He runs through a grim accounting of Aleppo's misery, based on numbers from this coalition of activists:
- 500,000 people killed in Syria six years, he says.
- At least 271,536 people trapped inside rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he says, citing Aleppo City Council.
- At least 2,300 documented strikes in the last 23 days, including airstrikes, explosive barrels, artillery, cluster bombs, bunker-busters, bombs loaded with chlorine gas.
- 4 hospitals struck in the last week, along with 6 schools, the civil defense headquarters and 2 bakeries.
CNN cannot independently verify the number of people killed in Syria, but the United Nations puts the figure at around 400,000.
The
video comes as Aleppo's death toll continues to rise. At least 59
civilians were killed there on Thursday, according to Syria's Civil
Defense, also known as the White Helmets. The organization said the dead
include a 55-year-old woman who was killed by a chemical attack
involving chlorine.
Al-Khatib
accuses Russian and Syrian regime air forces of intentionally targeting
civilian infrastructure to "break people's will," though Russia has
denied targeting civilian infrastructure.
Starving,
dying people with little to no access to medical care are afraid to go
to hospitals, he says, lest they became the victims of the latest
bombing.
The past six years have
been a "slow-motion train wreck," leaving him and his colleagues
wondering what good is the United Nations, he says. Even UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged that Syria "may be
recorded as one of the failures of the United Nations."
Al-Khatib appeals to the international community to push for the following:
- Ground Bashar al-Assad's air force or use diplomatic leverage to end Russian and Syrian bombardment of the city.
- Open a demilitarized humanitarian corridor under the United Nations' control for food, fuel, medicine and infrastructure supplies for water stations, electricity, hospitals, schools and civil defense.
- If neither is possible, airdrop humanitarian aid using the US-led coalition's warplanes in Syria.
The international community holds Aleppo's fate in its hands, he says. Will it heed their cry?
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