Cleansing East Aleppo of "Terrorists"

"We were sleeping when a barrel bomb fell near our home."
"We went down and discovered it was chlorine gas. The victims weren't activists or anything ... but they were suffocating so much, they turned blue."
"It was a man, four kids, and his wife. The oldest boy was ten years old. Why did this happen? May God curse you, Bashar (al-Assad)."
Aleppo resident

"It is imperative all parties agree to the plan and allow us to secure immediate, safe and unimpeded access to provide relief to those most in need in east Aleppo, but equally in all other parts of Syria where there are people in need."
Joint statement, Syria Humanitarian Coordinator Ali Al-Za'tari, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis Kevin Kennedy

"[Saturday's bombardment of hospitals marked] a dark day for east Aleppo."

"The attacks have destroyed entire hospitals, electric generators, emergency rooms and wards, forcing them to stop all medical activities."

"It is not only MSF that condemns indiscriminate attacks on civilians or civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, but also humanitarian law. The message is simple and I don't know how to say it any louder: Stop bombing hospitals."

Doctors Without Borders emergency coordinator Teresa Sancristoval 

A wounded child is rescued by a White Helmets volunteer after airstrikes on eastern Aleppo Friday.  CNN

Full bombing of east Aleppo has been resumed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad, while his ally, Vladimir Putin is no doubt ecstatic to have ordered the pride of the Russian fleet including its sole aircraft carrier into the Mediterranean off the Syrian coast to show the international community that Russia means business and boasting that it is targeting Islamic State and al-Qaeda's Nusra militias, while denying that it has had any hand in bombing Aleppo now.

So it has had nothing to do with a suspected chemical attack that has destroyed the lives of civilians, nor with the barrage of barrel bombs that hit the neighbourhood of al-Sakhour, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Aleppo Media Center.  Local medics confirmed that victims in the al-Sakhour district had suffocated to death as the bomb that hit them was laced with chlorine gas. Moscow may have distanced itself from the actual bombing in Aleppo at this point, but it is entirely complicit with the mass murderer who orchestrates it.

Rescuers were busy in an area where several hospitals were bombed on Friday, leaving the chief of a pediatrics clinic frantic to find somewhere to move his patients. "Now it [his pediatric hospital] is being bombed ... I am sorry ... I have to go to transfer the children", he stated through a text message. Dr. Hatem noted that his facility had been targeted multiple times on Friday and on the Wednesday before. Not strategically, of course, simply coincidentally.

The 275,000 Sunni Syrians still living in the rebel-held enclave fear to leave their homes, hoping that their personal shelters will suffice to protect them from the air assaults courtesy of their president who speaks of six or seven thousand rebels holding his, Assad's 'people', hostage to their agenda. That it is for this reason that he cannot, will not accede to a United Nations recommendation that east Aleppo be granted "self rule".

Impossible, huffed Assad, since that would be tantamount to violating "national sovereignty". Violating the human rights of Syrian Sunni civilians is obviously a matter of far lesser moment. Instead, this sanctimonious butcher chooses to bomb civilians as well as the hospitals where their wounds could be treated. Syria Civil Defence, the volunteer rescue service known as the White Helmets, confirmed that 180 air strikes hit east Aleppo on Saturday alone.

Dr. Mazen Kewara, director of the Syrian American Medical Society, warned that "For the first time, eastern Aleppo is out of hospitals operating at full capacity". Major trauma hospital were taken out of service, leading to the forced evacuation of babies, according to Doctors Without Borders. Though according to east Aleppo activists, five other hospitals in eastern neighbourhoods yet retain some level of practical functionality. Perhaps, under the circumstances, not for long.

Eastern Aleppo has been under heavy bombardment since Tuesday  Reuters