<p>
	US and Russia urged to broker mass evacuation from war-ravaged city</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	The United States and Russia must broker an evacuation from east Aleppo, UN Syria humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said yesterday, as a local politician warned that 150,000 people there faced &quot;extermination&quot;.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	Five months of negotiations over aid plans had produced &quot;nothing&quot;, Mr Egeland said, and it was up to the US and Russia to try to coordinate a deal.</p>
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	&quot;The member states that are supposed to help us get access to civilians in the crossfire are poles apart in how they regard what is happening in Syria,&quot; he told reporters after a weekly Syria humanitarian meeting led by the US and Russia.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	US secretary of state John Kerry said after talks in Hamburg with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov that he was &quot;hopeful&quot; about reaching an agreement but he was awaiting &quot;certain feedback and input&quot;.</p>
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	Opposition groups in eastern Aleppo were simply asking for a pause in the fighting to allow people to leave, with no strings attached, Mr Egeland said.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	Hungry</p>
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	Russia wants eastern Aleppo&#39;s citizens to leave via four humanitarian corridors, although it will not let food go in to supply the hungry population.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	&quot;Russia said they will definitely be discussing with us how to organise the evacuations, but they are not any more promising any pause [in fighting],&quot; Mr Egeland added.</p>
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	More than 800 people had been killed and between 3,000 and 3,500 wounded in the past 26 days, while those still trapped awaited an effective death sentence and needed safe passage, Aleppo council president Brita Haji Hassan said.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	&quot;Today 150,000 people are threatened with extermination,&quot; he added.</p>
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	A Unicef volunteer was shot dead in a &quot;child-friendly space&quot; and a mortar hit another UN location, with no casualties, but both sites temporarily suspended work, the UN said.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	Nearly 150 sick and disabled civilians were evacuated overnight from a hospital in Aleppo&#39;s old city, the first major medical evacuation, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.</p>
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	The UN described east Aleppo&#39;s health situation as &quot;catastrophic&quot;.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	Some 1,500 people needed medical evacuation, including 500 &quot;seriously wounded&quot;, said Tawfik Chamaa, of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organisations.</p>
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	The UN estimates about 33,000 people have been displaced in the past 10 days, including about 20,000 going into government-held areas. But Syria&#39;s government said 30,000 had been registered in government-held zones alone.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	Russia wants rebels and their families to be evacuated to the rebel-held town of Idlib, but the rebels want evacuees to go to northern Aleppo province.</p>
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	Mr Egeland said the local council in Idlib had informed the UN that the town could not receive any more people because it was already too full of displaced people.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	Meanwhile in Damascus, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said victory in the battle for Aleppo would be a &quot;big gain&quot; for his government but that it would not end the civil war.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	His comments came as his troops were pushing further into the rebel-held enclave in eastern Aleppo, in swift advances that were hardly possible earlier in the bitter conflict, now in its sixth year.</p>
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	Deeply divided since 2012 between Syrian government and rebel-controlled areas, more than three-quarters of the rebel section has now fallen under the government&#39;s control, including the symbolically important ancient Aleppo quarters.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	Yesterday, opposition activists said intensive bombings took place in the al-Sukkari and Kallaseh neighbourhoods in the area still held by rebels.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	State TV said the troops were about to storm the two districts. Al-Sukkari is in the southern part of eastern Aleppo, an area that has become home to the majority of the displaced civilians who stayed behind. Kallaseh is near the old city.</p>
<p>
	Disabled</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said meanwhile that it had evacuated 148 disabled civilians and others in need of urgent care from a facility in Aleppo&#39;s old city after fighting had calmed down there.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	The ICRC said in a statement yesterday that the evacuation was undertaken jointly with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and was completed late on Wednesday.</p>
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	The people had been trapped in a facility that was originally a home for the elderly and included mental health patients, elderly orphans and patients with physical disabilities. Some were injured civilians who had sought refuge there.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	&quot;They were forgotten,&quot; said Pawel Krzysiek, ICRC communication co-ordinator in Damascus. The evacuees were taken to hospital and shelters in the western, government-held part of Aleppo.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	(Published by the Irish Independent on the 9th December 2016)</p>
<p>
	<a href="http://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/150000-face-extermination-as-aleppo-on-brink-35280600.html">http://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/150000-face-extermination-as-aleppo-on-brink-35280600.html</a></p>
