Russia vetoed a UN resolution aimed at stopping the bombing of Aleppo on Saturday, prolonging the division and paralysis of the security council in the face of the Syria’s humanitarian disaster.
The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, currently presiding over the security council, cast the veto against a Franco-Spanish resolution that had demanded an end to all aerial bombardment and overflights of Aleppo by Russian and Syrian regime aircraft. The resolution also called for a resumed ceasefire and the delivery of humanitarian supplies to besieged population.
China abstained, further isolating Russia on the issue, along with Angola. Venezuela was the only other country to vote with Russia against the resolution.
A Russian counter-resolution, which omitted mention of aerial bombardment, was voted down with nine votes against and four in favour.
The bitter divisions in the council, which faces a high and rapidly rising death toll in eastern Aleppo , produced a heated but fruitless debate that saw some of the normal diplomatic niceties abandoned.
“Normally I begin my statement with, ‘Thank you Mr President’,” Matthew Rycroft, the UK ambassador to the UN, said at the start of his remarks. “I cannot do this today.”
“This council cannot stand by while such misery is meted out on the people of Aleppo. And yet, thanks to you, Mr President, that is exactly what we are doing,” Rycroft told the council. “Thanks to your actions today, Syrians will continue to lose their lives in Aleppo and beyond to Russian and Syrian bombing. Please stop now.”
The US deputy ambassador, David Pressman, said: “One of us, perversely the president of council, is determined for the killing to continue, and is helping carry it out.”
There are about 275,000 people
trapped by the siege of eastern Aleppo, where civilians are suffering through daily bombing, including by bunker-buster and incendiary weapons, and through starvation, as limited supplies run out and aid convoys are blocked from the city. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, on Friday called for a war crimes investigation of the Russian and Syrian regime bombing.
The Russian foreign ministry said the Franco-Spanish resolution “distorted” the real situation in
Syria , and that a ban on aerial bombardment would “provide cover to terrorists from Jabhat al-Nusra” and allied militants.
According to diplomats, the UN envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told the security council that the presence of roughly 1,000 Nusra fighters was being used as a pretext for the bombing of 275,000 people and had offered to personally escort the militant group out of the city to guarantee their safe passage.
At the present rate of bombardment of eastern Aleppo, De Mistura said the city would be totally destroyed by December. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called it “worse than a slaughterhouse”.
“Russia has once again abused its veto privilege and sabotaged the UN security council, this time stonewalling efforts to stop the vicious assault on east Aleppo’s civilians,” said Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch.
“Today’s vote is a stark reminder of the urgent need for permanent members of the security council to shelve the veto in situations of mass atrocities, an idea supported by a vast majority of countries around the world. The ball is now in the court of the UN general assembly, which should feel compelled to hold an emergency meeting, demand an end to unlawful attacks on civilians in Aleppo, 100,000 of whom are children, and explore avenues for accountability.
