Almost 30,000 flee east Aleppo, Russia wants humanitarian corridors - U.N.

Record ID: 75102

  • Title: Almost 30,000 flee east Aleppo, Russia wants humanitarian corridors - U.N.
  • Date: 1st December 2016
  • Summary: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (DECEMBER 1, 2016) (REUTERS) UNITED NATIONS BUILDING JOURNALISTS AND CAMERAMAN / U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR SYRIA STAFFAN DE MISTURA AND HIS SPECIAL ADVISER JAN EGELAND DURING NEWS BRIEFING U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR SYRIA STAFFAN DE MISTURA AND HIS SPECIAL ADVISER JAN EGELAND DURING NEWS BRIEFING CAMERAMAN (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR SYRIA'S SPECIAL ADVISER JAN EGELAND SAYING: "According to what has been registered, and these are figures from yesterday, some 18,000 people we have registered in the government-controlled areas who came from east Aleppo, it could be higher today, plus some 8,500 in the Kurdish-controlled Cheikh Masoud area, so that would make maybe 27,000 or so altogether, it could be slightly higher." DE MISTURA AND EGELAND DURING NEWS CONFERENCE CAMERAMAN (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR SYRIA'S SPECIAL ADVISER JAN EGELAND SAYING: "Operations are now happening in basements without anesthesia... Imagine... Being, having your child, rush to an unsanitary basement and then being operated upon without anesthesia... These are the conditions today in eastern Aleppo. We hope to be able to remedy that, and were are starting today to discuss the opportunity that the corridors might bring." JOURNALIST (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR SYRIA'S SPECIAL ADVISER JAN EGELAND SAYING: "In west Aleppo, which would be, you now, half an hour, one hour away with trucks, we have food for a 150,000 people that we could bring to east Aleppo very easily, and we have all of the medical equipment, medicines, etc, that they need in east Aleppo. It is pre-positioned, we have people there, we basically need the access and we are sitting down now to discuss it with Russia and with the government of Syria." JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR SYRIA'S SPECIAL ADVISER JAN EGELAND SAYING: "What we need there is more adequate shelter. The 400,000 internally displaced in western Aleppo are now joined by tens of thousands, or more - it is our estimation. And we need, we need a winter programme for them. I mean, Europe panicked because we got 400,000 from Syria all of Europe, west Aleppo has that alone." CAMERA DE MISTURA AND EGELAND LEAVING UNITED NATIONS BUILDING
  • Embargoed: 16th December 2016 14:13
  • Keywords: Aleppo Russia United Nations Jan Egeland Syria Staffan de Mistura
  • Location: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
  • City: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
  • Country: Switzerland
  • Reuters ID: LVA0015B1ZOLJ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Almost 30,000 people have fled the besieged rebel-held part of Aleppo in the past few days, the U.N. said on Thursday (December 1st), taking the total number of the displaced people in the western part of the city to more than 400,000, where they face a coming bitter winter.
    "According to what has been registered, and these are figures from yesterday, some 18,000 people we have registered in the government-controlled areas who came from east Aleppo, it could be higher today, plus some 8,500 in the Kurdish-controlled Cheikh Masoud area, so that would make maybe 27,000 or so altogether, it could be slightly higher," the U.N. Special Envoy for Syria's Special Adviser Jan Egeland told reporters following a weekly humanitarian task force on Syria, insisting that the U.N., which is scaling up its presence in west Aleppo to face the increasingly dire situation, had been able to access them, while they still couldn't access the people still trapped in eastern Aleppo.
    According to Jan Egeland, Russia and the Syrian Government have for now refused to make a pause in the bombing to let medical and food assistance in in eastern Aleppo, but Russia has proposed to set up 4 humanitarian corridors to evacuate the wounded - 400 injured people still need immediate evacuation from east Aleppo- and get aid in.
    "Operations are now happening in basements without anesthesia... Imagine... Being, having your child, rush to an unsanitary basement and then being operated upon without anesthesia... These are the conditions today in eastern Aleppo. We hope to be able to remedy that, and were are starting today to discuss the opportunity that the corridors might bring," Jan Egeland described and said.
    "In west Aleppo, which would be, you now, half an hour, one hour away with trucks, we have food for a 150,000 people that we could bring to east Aleppo very easily, and we have all of the medical equipment, medicines, etc, that they need in east Aleppo. It is pre-positioned, we have people there, we basically need the access and we are sitting down now to discuss it with Russia and with the government of Syria," he added.
    The top priority however remains a pause in the fighting.
    The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura renewed his call for the members of the Jihadist group formerly known as the Nusra Front to leave the besieged zone, which he said would help save lives and strengthen the argument for a ceasefire.
    Elsewhere in Syria, aid convoys reached the four besieged towns of Foua, Kufreya, Madaya and Zabadani this week but overall aid convoys only reached 8% of the besieged population in November.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register