Mohamed Sabry Emam Muhammed
October 04, 2016•Update: October 04, 2016
By Ammar al-Khelfi
ISTANBUL
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has called an emergency meeting for Sunday to discuss the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.
In a statement released Monday, the OIC said the meeting – which will be held in the Saudi city of Jeddah at the request of Kuwait – will look into developments in the war-battered city.
Since Sept. 19, when the Bashar al-Assad regime announced the end of a week-long truce sponsored by Washington and Moscow, Syrian and Russian warplanes have pounded opposition-held parts of Aleppo.
Scores of civilians have reportedly been killed or injured in the attacks, which remain ongoing.
Last week, the UN aid chief, Stephen O’Brien, warned that Aleppo faces a humanitarian catastrophe “unlike any” witnessed so far in Syria’s six-year conflict.
“Let me be clear: east Aleppo this minute is not at the edge of the precipice,” O’Brien told the UN Security Council on Thursday.
“It is well into its terrible descent into the pitiless and merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed in Syria.”
“Syria is bleeding. Its citizens are dying. We all hear their cry for help.”
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings – with unexpected ferocity.
The Syrian Center for Policy Research, a Beirut-based NGO, has put the total death toll from the five-year conflict at more than 470,000.
