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French FM: World must wake up to ‘tragedy’ taking place in Syria

December 1, 2016 at 10:41 am

France will not remain “complacent” as “a tragedy is taking place” in Syria under the rule of President Bashar Al-Assad, the country’s Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said yesterday.

“I will be meeting on December 10 in Paris, the European countries, the Arab countries and the United States, which support a political solution in Syria and refuse this logic of total war,” Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters after leaving the weekly meeting of France’s Council of Ministers.

“It is time for the international community to wake up because, before our eyes, a tragedy is taking place.”

“We are not the accomplices of [Syrian leader] Bashar Al-Assad; we are not complacent to him,” Ayrault continued.

Following a meeting with Ayrault yesterday, the President of the Aleppo local council Brita Hagi Hasan said: “The civilians are calling for the world to help. In the name of humanity let the civilians leave the city. Help the civilians! Protect the civilians!”

He called for the immediate establishment of safe corridors for potentially some 250,000 civilians to leave the city.

The Syrian army and its allies announced the capture of a large swathe of eastern Aleppo from rebels earlier this week, in an attack that threatens to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Syrian government had detained hundreds of people forced to flee opposition-held areas of east Aleppo because of the attack.

“The regime is occupying some (new) areas of Aleppo. We have documented evidence, proof of executions and reprisals,” Hagi Hasan said, adding that men aged under 40 were in particular being targeted.

“Our priority first is to protect the civilian population and have some concrete measures in place,” Ayrault said.

“We shall see what the members of the Security Council can do to save lives. Everyone is against the wall, but we can’t look the other way.”