Russia has been directly and repeatedly accused of war crimes at the UN security council in an unusually blunt session, as hopes of any form of ceasefire were flattened by the scale and ferocity of the Syrian regime’s assault on eastern Aleppo. At the security council meeting, Rycroft’s French counterpart, François Delattre, agreed the use of bunker-busters and incendiaries on urban residential areas were war crimes and insisted “these crimes must not go unpunished”. “Since that fateful day, we have seen the situation in eastern Aleppo deteriorate to new heights of horror,” de Mistura said. He said the airstrikes were reported to have killed 213 people in Aleppo province, 139 of them in eastern Aleppo. But today’s statements in the security council from France, the US and UK are more raw, and more angry.

Source: The Guardian September 25, 2016 18:49 UTC