Tag: InternationalNews

{Federal Judge Vicente Antonio Bermudez Zacarias shot in head at point-blank range near Mexico City, but motive unknown.}

A federal judge whose court handled some cases related to drug cartels has been killed near Mexico City.

Vicente Antonio Bermudez Zacarias was murdered in Metepec, a town in the state of Mexico, the Supreme Court said in a statement on Monday.

President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned the murder and ordered the attorney general’s office to take over the investigation.

According to local media, Bermudez was shot in the head at point-blank range and succumbed to his wound while being taken to a hospital.

The judge was exercising outside when he was killed, according to the newspaper Reforma.

Eruviel Avila, Mexico state governor, said the shooting had been captured by a security camera.

Bermudez became a district court judge in December 2013 and served in the Fifth Tribunal for appeals and civil judgments in the State of Mexico when he was killed.

Motive unknown

The court has handled cases related to organised crime, but the motive of his murder was not immediately known.

Bermudez’s cases included one involving the Los Cuinis drug cartel and a tax-fraud investigation against Naim Libien Kaui, a powerful businessman whose family is accused of links to drug traffickers, Mexican media reports said.

“I have given instruction to the attorney general to take up this case, undertake the corresponding investigations and find those responsible for this terrible event,” Pena Nieto said during an international meeting of judges that was scheduled before the murder.

Before the start of a public hearing, Luis Maria Aguilar Morales, Supreme Court president, urged the authorities to ensure the safety of judges.

“Federal judges are people who dedicate their lives, their personal, moral and physical integrity to serve federal justice in our country,” Aguilar said.

“They require security and peace conditions that guarantee their independence because in an atmosphere of peace and security, judges can reflect on their decisions.”

{The EU says Russian raids on Aleppo could “amount to war crimes” but stops short of considering sanctions on Moscow.}

The European Union has strongly condemned Russia for causing “untold suffering” through its bombardment of the Syrian city of Aleppo, but stopped short of considering new sanctions on Moscow.

“Since the beginning of the offensive by the regime and its allies, notably Russia, the intensity and scale of the aerial bombardment of eastern Aleppo is clearly disproportionate,” European Union foreign ministers said in a statement after talks in Luxembourg on Monday.

“The deliberate targeting of hospitals, medical personnel, schools and essential infrastructure, as well as the use of barrel bombs, cluster bombs, and chemical weapons, constitute a catastrophic escalation of the conflict … and may amount to war crimes,” they said.

The bloc’s foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini said that they are not considering sanctions against Russia, but further measures against its ally Damascus are possible.

“This has not been proposed by any member state,” Mogherini said as she arrived for the meeting of 28 European Union ministers dominated by the Syrian crisis when asked about steps against Moscow.

“But we have sanctions on the Syrian regime … and there are discussions on that, for sure, [expanding] that could be possible,” added Mogherini, the former Italian foreign minister.

Mogherini said she was “proud” the EU was not a military power party to the conflict, and so it could focus instead on getting those that were to agree a ceasefire, humanitarian help and a lasting political solution.

{{Germany ‘sceptical’ }}

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier insisted sanctions would not help improve the plight of civilians in Aleppo.

“I am not the only one who is rather sceptical with a view to sanctions,” he said, adding that talks “are still the best chance”.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn added: “I do not think it would be fruitful if we discuss now for hours if and how and when we are going to decide on sanctions against Russia.

“Firstly, we will not find a consensus and secondly I believe as well that it is not the right time and it would be counter-productive,” he said.

Austria, a transit point for Russian gas flows to Europe, also voiced its opposition on Monday.

“The idea to have additional sanctions against Russia would be wrong,” Austria’s Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz told reporters. “We do not need a further escalation,” he said.

{{Keeping pressure on Assad}}

But others said it was imperative to increase the pressure on Russia and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in order to halt the carnage.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the ministers would “examine all the options to put much stronger pressure on the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his allies”.

“The pressure [on Russia] must be strong,” he said.

Spain, which co-sponsored with France last week’s vetoed UN resolution for a ceasefire in Aleppo, would back Russian sanctions if they helped “bring Russia’s position closer to ours” acting Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said.

Fresh “brainstorming” talks held on Saturday in Lausanne, Switzerland, with the main players in Syria’s conflict including Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov failed to produce any breakthrough.

The EU already has extensive sanctions in place against Syria, including oil and arms embargoes, plus restrictions on more than 200 individuals and 70 entities.

With no military presence in the Syria conflict, it is searching for a role as peacemaker and may try to lead a process to bring regional powers including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey to talks on a final peace settlement, if a ceasefire can be agreed.

In the latest fighting, at least 14 civilians were killed in air strikes on Aleppo on Monday, bringing to 47 the number killed in the past 24 hours.

Russia said on Monday its forces and Syrian regime troops would briefly halt fire in Aleppo on Thursday, as criticism mounted of the ferocious Moscow-backed assault on the Syrian city.

“We have taken a decision not to waste time and to introduce ‘humanitarian pauses’, mainly for the free passage of civilians, evacuation of the sick and wounded and withdrawal of fighters,” senior Russian military officer Sergei Rudskoi said at a press briefing.

The ceasefire would run from 08:00 to 16:00 local time (0500 GMT to 1300 GMT) “in the area of Aleppo”, Rudskoi said.

The conflict in Syria has left nearly 400,000 people dead according to UN estimates and displaced half the population, many of whom have fled the country.

{US pledges support for “historic operation” amid fears for fate of civilians trapped in ISIL’s de-facto capital in Iraq.}

Iraqi government forces have launched a campaign to retake Mosul, the de-facto capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in Iraq.

Up to 1.5 million civilians remain in the city, according to the United Nations, amid fears that the vastly outnumbered ISIL fighters could use them as human shields as they seek to repel the assault on its last major stronghold in the country.

Mosul is Iraq’s second largest city and the last urban centre still under ISIL control in Iraq after a series of government offensives to reverse the group’s seizure of territory in 2014.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr in Khazir, one of the frontline positions around the ISIL-controlled city of Mosul
This is a very complicated operation, simply because of the mix of forces that are taking part. There is the central government in Baghdad, the Iraqi forces, Iraqi counterterrorism units and there is also the Kurdish Peshmerga who are allied in this fight but who do have a lot of differences.

There is also the question of Iranian-backed Shia militias – a very controversial issue because the people of Mosul are mainly Sunni. They fear that if the Shia militias actually take part and enter the city there will be reprisals. But what we understand from the government is that they are going to be staying at the perimeter of Mosul and they will not be advancing towards the city centre.

“The hour has come and the moment of great victory is near,” Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s prime minister, said early on Monday in a speech broadcast on state TV, surrounded by the armed forces’ top commanders.

The bid to retake Mosul comes after the military, backed by armed tribes, militias and US-led coalition air strikes, regained much of the territory the fighters seized in 2014 and 2015.

“We are proud to stand with you in this historic operation,” Brett McGurk, US envoy to the coalition against ISIL, said on Twitter at the start of the Mosul offensive.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Khazir, just east of Mosul, said preparations for the offensive had long been under way, with forces amassing around the city where an estimated one million people still live under the control of ISIL, also known as ISIS.

“Now that the formal announcement has been made, we are expecting the US-led coalition to carry out air strikes in support of what is expected to be a ground advance from a number of front lines around the city,” she said.

But the launch of the operation marks only the start of a battle that is likely to be the most difficult in the war against ISIL.

“This could be a very long fight, or ISIL could choose to withdraw, it is very hard to say. But it is a complex battleground and a complex operation,” our correspondent said.

According to UN estimates, up to one million people could be displaced from Mosul during the operation, exacerbating the humanitarian situation in the country.

“This is urban territory. There’s going to be street-to-street fighting. It’s densely populated and there is concern about the civilians who are basically trapped inside the city,” Al Jazeera’s Khodr said.

In the lead-up to the planned operation, Iraqi aircraft dropped “tens of thousands” of leaflets early on Sunday, some bearing safety instructions for Mosul residents, the military said.

Iraqi troops were also positioned east of Mosul in the Khazer area, along with Kurdish Peshmerga forces, and to the north of the city near the Mosul Dam and Bashiqa areas.

Before Abadi’s announcement, Brigadier-General Haider Fadhil told the Associated Press news agency in an interview that more than 25,000 troops, including paramilitary forces made up of Sunni tribal fighters and Shia militias, would take part in the offensive that will be launched from five directions around the city.

Our correspondent said: “It’s a very uneasy alliance. Let’s take the Peshmerga and the Iraqi army, for example. Yes, the US has mediated between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government and they resolved regional disputes, but there’s also the issue of disputed territories.”

The alliance of Iraqi forces fighting to retake Mosul include the Iraqi army, the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Popular Mobilisation Forces, shia militia groups that now have official status from Baghdad.

For the past two years, the Iraqi army has struggled to regain control over vast parts of the country that fell to ISIL – even struggling to maintain security in the capital.

Baghdad still suffers frequent explosions, car bombs and suicide attacks, mainly in crowded areas.

The ongoing fighting between Iraqi forces and ISIL has displaced more than three million Iraqis and left an estimated 10 million in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN.

The UN has described the country’s crisis as “one of the world’s worst”.

{Northern town considered central to group’s propaganda for its symbolic significance falls after months of air strikes.}

Syrian opposition fighters backed by Turkey have taken control of the northern Syrian town of Dabiq from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

The fighters said they seized the town on Sunday following heavy shelling and months of air strikes.

Dabiq is considered a major ISIL stronghold with symbolic importance to the group, also known as ISIS.

A commander of the Syrian opposition Hamza Brigade said ISIL fighters put up “minimal” resistance, before withdrawing in the direction of the much larger ISIL-held town of al-Bab to the south.

Saif Abu Bakr told The Associated Press news agency some 2,000 opposition fighters pushed into Dabiq with tank and artillery support from the Turkish army. The commander said the ISIL fighters left the town heavily mined.

Both Turkish and international coalition warplanes conducted air strikes on Dabiq and nearby Arshak, the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow, reporting from Gaziantep , a town along the Turkey-Syria border , said the rebels have not only taken control of Dabiq but also some towns nearby.

“This is huge setback for ISIL because it is not only a strategic town but it also holds a huge symbolic value for ISIL,” he said.

“About 3,000 civilians have fled their homes as the rebels are now turning their attention to the town of al-Bab.”

Ibrahim Kalin, spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said later on Sunday that Turkish-backed operations will continue until the border area is fully secure.

“Strategically, it is important that the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army forces will continue their advance toward al-Bab, a key terrorist stronghold,” Kalin told Reuters news agency.

On Saturday, Erdogan had said in a speech that once the areas are retaken from ISIL, some of the nearly three million Syrian refugees in Turkey could return to their homes.

Dabiq is central to ISIL propaganda, with the group citing ancient prophecy declaring the town as the scene of an apocalyptic battle between Christianity and Islam.

The group named its online magazine after Dabiq, which it had occupied since August 2014.

Moments after the announcement of Dabiq’s recapture, a suicide bombing was reported during a police raid in Gaziantep.

At least three police officers were killed and eight people wounded when a suicide bomber detonated explosives during the raid on a suspected ISIL safehouse.

In other Syria-related news, John Kerry, the US secretary of state, was due to meet European foreign ministers in London on Sunday to discuss the conflict, a day after “tense” and “difficult” talks with Russia ended inconclusively.

The diplomats were to discuss the results of Kerry’s meeting on Saturday in Switzerland, which included the foreign ministers of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and how to reduce the violence in Syria.

Several major international efforts have failed to secure a political solution to Syria’s civil war, which has cost more than 400,000 lives since 2011.

The meeting in Lausanne did not produce a concrete plan to restore the truce that collapsed last month amid bitter recriminations between the US and Russia and new fighting on the ground.

But Kerry insisted the new, leaner contact group had come up with some plausible ideas that would be fleshed out in the coming days and might lead to a new, stronger ceasefire.

“The way it wrapped up was to have several ideas that need to be quickly followed up,” he said after talks with Russia, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey.

“The next contact on trying to follow up on this is going to be immediately, because this is urgent, and we’re not letting any grass grow under our feet.”

The flurry of diplomacy comes weeks after a ceasefire deal collapsed and the US suspended cooperation with Russia over its continued bombing of the city of Aleppo.

“I think Lavrov and Kerry were trying to put a brave face on what happened here,” Al Jazeera’s Diplomatic Editor James Bays, reporting from Lausanne, said.

“They came to the table again to sort out the situation in northern Syria, particularly the bombardment of Aleppo, and once again diplomacy failed the people of Aleppo.

“No breakthrough, no concrete developments at all from these talks.”

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said after the talks he had pressed for a “political process” to end the conflict to begin “as soon as possible”, while Kerry said they had talked about new ideas for a ceasefire.

While the diplomatic efforts continue, on the ground the fighting shows no signs of abating.

Activists say Russian and Syrian government air strikes killed 11 civilians on Sunday. The strikes hit residential areas and a medicine factory in Idlib and Aleppo provinces.

Before Saturday’s talks were set to begin, dozens of overnight air strikes struck east Aleppo, Britain-based Syrian Organisation for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Friday.

Three hospitals in Aleppo were hit by suspected Russian air strikes on Friday, killing seven people, sources told Al Jazeera.

More than 370 people, including nearly 70 children, have been killed in Syrian government and Russian bombardment of east Aleppo since September 22, according to the SOHR.

{Battles between rival factions in Boa Vista prison end in bloodshed with at least 25 people killed.}

At least 25 inmates died on Sunday in clashes between two rival factions in a prison in far northern Brazil, local media reported citing police.

Seven of the dead were beheaded and six burned to death in fighting at a prison in Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima state, the news site G1 reported, citing local police.

The bloodshed began when inmates of one wing of the Agricola de Monte Cristo prison broke into another wing.

Inmates were armed with knives and wooden clubs, an inmate’s wife who was in the prison when the riot broke out told G1.

Roraima state Secretary of Justice Uziel Castro said that the fight erupted during visiting hours, and some 100 relatives of inmates were briefly held hostage.

The rioters demanded that a judge come to hear their demands.

Instead, Special Operations Police stormed the prison, released the hostages and regained control of the site by sundown.

“All the hostages were released,” Castro said, adding that most of them were women.

The prison, some 3,400 kilometers northwest of Rio de Janeiro, is in a state that borders Venezuela.

Fights and riots are common throughout Brazil’s overcrowded prison system. It has the fourth largest prison population behind the US, China and Russia.

Police and state officials did not immediately respond to phone calls for comment.

{At least 24 people, including women and children, dead after two passenger buses collide in Rahimyar Khan district.}

At least 24 people have been killed and more than 70 injured after two passenger buses collided in central Pakistan, police say.

The two buses, carrying around 100 passengers, collided on Monday in the town of Khanpur in Rahimyar Khan district, about 800km south of the capital Islamabad.

Jamshid Shah, a police official, said speeding seemed to be the cause of the accident, which occurred on a dangerous curve.

One of the buses was on its way from Karachi to Lahore while the other was heading to Sadiqabad from Faisalabad, local newspapers reported.

Shah said women and children were among those killed and injured. He said police and rescue officials were using cutters to retrieve bodies stuck inside the two buses.

Mehar Arsal, a local police chief, said the buses slammed into trees after colliding with each other.

Pakistan has a dismal record of fatal traffic accidents due to poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving.

More than 4,600 people were killed in road traffic accidents in 2013, the last year the government released official data.

{B’Tselem leader, who urged the UN to take decisive action against settlements, says he won’t be deterred by criticisms.}

An Israeli human rights group has vowed to continue its battle against Israel’s settlements built on occupied lands sought by the Palestinians, rejecting a harsh rebuke by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli leader accused B’tselem of joining a “chorus of slander” against Israel, after the rights group urged the UN Security Council to take decisive action against settlements.

B’Tselem responded to Netanyahu’s remarks on Sunday, saying that “unlike the prime minister and his slander, we believe that the Israeli public is worthy of meaningful discussion of the occupation.

“But the prime minister has no answers for the Israeli public, so instead he tries to go after B’Tselem,” it added.

“This will not deter us, nor the hundreds of thousands in Israel who oppose the occupation.”

B’Tselem joined American Friends of Peace Now, the US affiliate of an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog, at Friday’s informal Security Council session.

Hagai El-Ad, executive director of B’Tselem, told the meeting that with the 50th anniversary of the 1967 war approaching next year, “the rights of Palestinians must be realised, the occupation must end, the UN Security Council must act, and the time is now”.

Late on Saturday night, Netanyahu accused the group of making “false claims” and said he would remove B’Tselem from a list of organisations where Israelis can do national service in lieu of mandatory military service.

Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, along with the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war and began building settlements soon after.

About 600,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in addition to roughly 2.5 million Palestinians.

Palestinians demand these occupied territories, along with Gaza, for a future state. They view Israeli settlement construction as a major obstacle to statehood, a position that has wide international support.

B’Tselem’s move at the UN came after a resolution by the UN cultural agency last week denied the Jewish connection to holy sites in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu’s government is dominated by West Bank settlers and their allies, and his coalition has repeatedly pushed legislation apparently aimed at curbing the power of rights groups suh as B’tselem.

Veteran columnist Ben Caspit criticised B’Tselem’s tactics, saying it risked antagonising the public. But he said what it had done was not “treason”.

“What Netanyahu is doing is questioning the legitimacy of these organisations, just as he questions the legitimacy of journalists who criticise him,” he wrote in the Maariv daily.

“That is incitement, and in the current mood, it is liable to be dangerous.”

{Navy says USS Mason used countermeasures against missiles from Houthi-controlled region in direct action against group.}

US officials say a new round of missiles targeting an American warship in the Red Sea has been fired from a region of Yemen controlled by Houthi fighters.

The USS Mason, a destroyer, launched countermeasures and was not hit in Saturday’s strike.

Three US warships in the Red Sea detected the missiles, the US military said, amid rising tensions with the Iran-allied group.

“The Mason once again appears to have come under attack in the Red Sea, again from coastal defence cruise missiles fired from the coast of Yemen,” Admiral John Richardson, chief of naval operations, announced on Saturday in Baltimore.

US officials initially said that surface-to-surface missiles had been fired at the USS Mason, USS Nitze and USS Ponce off the coast of Yemen starting around 19:30 GMT, though it was unclear how many.

If confirmed, the missile launches would be the third attack in about a week targeting the Mason and other US ships.

Earlier this week, the Mason, sailing in international waters off Yemen’s coast, used unspecified countermeasures against incoming missiles, a military official said on the condition of anonymity.

The attempted missile strikes is the most serious escalation yet of US involvement in Yemen’s civil war.

The conflict has killed an estimated 6,800 people, wounded more than 35,000 and displaced at least three million since an Arab coalition assembled by Saudi Arabia launched military operations last year.

US officials say the US wants to avoid getting embroiled in yet another war in the Middle East.

On Thursday, the US navy launched five Tomahawk cruise missiles at three mobile radar sites in Houthi-controlled territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, after the fighters fired rockets at the USS Mason twice in four days.

The US military insists these moves are taken out of self-defence. The Houthis have denied conducting the attacks.

Though the US is providing logistical support to the Arab coalition battling the Houthis, Thursday’s launches marked the first time the US has taken direct action against the group.

But the US strikes earlier this week did not take out Houthi missiles, and though the radar destruction makes it harder to aim the weapons, officials say the fighters could still use spotter boats or online ship-tracking websites to find new targets.

{{Rise of the Houthis}}

Officially known as Ansarallah (Partisans of God), the Houthis began as a theological movement that preached tolerance and peace in the early 1990s.

A religious group affiliated with the Zaydi sect of Shia Islam, they maintained a stronghold in the northern province of Saada.

The group’s rise began to pick up momentum in August 2014 when thousands of its supporters protested in the streets of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, urging the government to step down.

Among other demands, Houthi leader Abdulmalek al-Houthi requested that fuel subsidies, which had been cut significantly in late July, be reinstated.

After the Houthis’ swift rise to power culminating in the overthrow of President Abdu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the Arab coalition stepped in on March 25, 2015, and began air strikes in an effort to stop the their advance.

{Nine-nation meeting in Switzerland fails to agree on any concrete action to stop the violence in Syria.}

A new round of diplomatic talks has failed once again to break a tense deadlock on how to end fighting in Syria, as a nine-nation meeting in the Swiss city of Lausanne did not agree on any concrete action to stop the violence.

With clashes still raging in Aleppo, Saturday’s talks, convened by US Secretary of State John Kerry, concluded after more than four hours without any joint statement from the participating countries.

Kerry was seeking a new path to peace after failing to secure a ceasefire in direct talks with Russia amid increasing international outrage over the Russian and Syrian bombardment of Aleppo’s rebel-held east.

Kerry hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and seven foreign ministers from the region, as well as top diplomats from the United Nations, only weeks after the collapse of a US-Russia brokered truce.

After the meeting, Kerry told reporters that the talks were “constructive”, but admitted that the parties had failed to agree on any concrete action.

He also said the next contact between sides at the talks would be on Monday to discuss future steps.

Lavrov, on the other hand, told Russian news agencies that the countries discussed several “interesting ideas”.

“I think Lavrov and Kerry were trying to put a brave face on what happened here,” Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor James Bays, reporting from Lausanne, said.

“They came to the table again to sort out the situation in morthern Syria, particularly the bombardment of Aleppo, and once again diplomacy failed the people of Aleppo.

“No breakthrough, no concrete developments at all from these talks.”

Ahead of the talks, Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s UN ambassador, said that a key aim of the Lausanne meeting was to get countries that support “moderate” opposition groups to use their influence to work for a new ceasefire.

Kerry and Lavrov were joined in Lausanne by Staffan de Mistura, the UN Syria envoy, along with the top diplomats of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – all backers of Syrian opposition forces.

Iran, a key supporter of the Syrian government, also sent its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to take part in the talks.

London meeting

European countries were not represented at the meeting, which was held in a luxury hotel on Lake Geneva.

But French officials confirmed that foreign ministers of like-minded nations planned to meet Kerry in London on Sunday to discuss the Syria crisis.

Al Jazeera’s Bays said ministers from the UK, France and Germany are expected to discuss what happened in Lausanne, but also “talk about some wider issues”.

“The UK and France have been discussing military options. We know that the US under President Obama are reluctant to look at the military option,” our correspondent said.

“We know France has been pushing for a war crimes investigation in to Syrian government and Russia’s aerial bombardment – those things will now be discussed in London.”

{{Aleppo bombardment}}

Several major international efforts have failed to secure a political solution to Syria’s brutal war, which has cost more than 400,000 lives since 2011.

Russia and the US reached a ceasefire agreement last month, before it quickly collapsed amid a Moscow-backed Syrian assault on the rebel-held part of Aleppo.

The offensive has prompted accusations of potential war crimes from Western countries.

More than 370 people, including nearly 70 children, have been killed in Syrian government and Russian bombardment of east Aleppo since September 22, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Before Saturday’s talks were set to begin, dozens of overnight air strikes struck east Aleppo, the SOHR said on Friday.

Three hospitals in Aleppo were hit by suspected Russian air strikes on Friday, killing seven people, Al Jazeera has learned.

The latest bombardment has prompted four leading charities to call for a ceasefire in Aleppo.

The nongovernmental organisations issued on Saturday a joint plea “to establish a ceasefire of at least 72 hours in east Aleppo”, where an estimated 250,000 people are living under bombardment siege.

“This will allow the sick and wounded to be evacuated, and for food and medical aid to enter the besieged area,” said a statement from one of the charities, Save the Children.