The Bishop of Aleppo has called on rebel and pro-government forces to put aside their weapons and ideology and focus on the desperate residents of the shattered rebel enclave of Aleppo.
"Let's look at the bruised faces,” said the bishop in a statement released by Caritas International on 16 December. “Let's begin with the exhausted faces of the women and children. Let's look at the faces of men who have lost their dreams and illusions. Let's look at the truth and let God grant us objectivity."
Bishop Antoine Audo, head of the Syrian branch of Caritas, the Church's aid agency, urged the world to "listen to the call of the poorest, which is the cry of God crucified and [the] unborn child of the manger.”
"We need reconciliation through honest dialogue," he said, adding that the developed world must "stop exploiting the fragilities and ignorance of the Third World for economic and political interests."
Speaking the day after he returned from Damascus, Syrian-born Melkite Catholic Patriarch Gregoire III Laham called for unity between world powers, rather than accusations.
“Between the superpowers bickering, a whole country got destroyed,” he told Catholic News Service on 16 December.
“Hospitals, schools, churches, mosques and so many people were killed or were displaced. Accusing each other is not going to help the situation. This is the time to work with each other so we can end the war and rebuild Syria,” he added.
Around 40,000 civilians are in need of urgent evacuation from the devastated city where they are trapped with little food in the depths of winter, report humanitarian organisations.
With Russia’s backing, the United Nations Security Council voted today (19 December) to monitor evacuations from Aleppo, after previous rescue attempts collapsed as interested parties sought to use the situation for their own gain.
Iran and the Syrian regime have been determined to use the fate of east Aleppo to settle accounts with opposition elsewhere in the country, while Jihadis who influence parts of the rebel movement have stalled the process to win concessions as their control of northern Syria has slipped, report the Guardian.
On 18 December, a deal to free some of east Aleppo’s remaining civilians in exchange for sick and wounded people from two pro-government villages collapsed after six rescue buses sent to evacuate the loyalist areas were stopped and set ablaze by Islamist forces.
Following the United Nations vote President Francois Hollande of France said in a statement: “After so many delaying tactics and obstruction, this resolution should finally allow the full respect of international humanitarian law in Syria.”
During the course of 19 December, a total of 20,000 people have been removed from the last rebel-held part of Aleppo, the Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said in a post on Twitter earlier today.
PICTURE: Syrians evacuated from the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo during the ceasefire arrive at a refugee camp in Rashidin, near Idlib, Syria on 19 December.
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