Aleppo described as worse than hellfire; stories of children burned alive, women committing suicide to avoid rape emerge
As President Bashar al-Assad's forces reclaim the rebel-held city of Aleppo, fears of widespread human rights violation emerge after reports of children being torched alive, civilians being executed, and women being raped surfaced.
Mirror reports that according to Aleppo24, which claims to be an independent news source, a child was burned alive in one of the violent encounters between the Syrian Army and the rebel forces.
Mass civilian executions are also reportedly being carried out by government forces. The United Nations claims that 82 civilians were fired upon on the spot by military people. According to UN spokesman Rupert Colville, they received accounts of bodies scattered on the streets which could not be retrieved by the residents as heavy bombardment continued.
Turkish press agency Anadolu, as reported by TRT World, quoted a source, Mahmud Sheikh, who claims to have seen 67 men executed. "The Shia militia gunmen immolated nine children and four women, and executed 67 men by firing squad in Firdaus and Kallasa districts today. These were all civilians."
Meanwhile, aid worker Abdullateef Khaled shared in a Facebook post a disturbing letter from a nurse who was trapped in Aleppo. The letter revealed the nurse's plan to commit suicide because she's one of the women who were about to be raped by what she called "Syrian army animals."
The English-translated letter read in part, "I am one of the woman in Aleppo who will soon be raped in just moments..there are no more weapons or men that can stand between us and the animals who are about to come called the 'country's army.'" The nurse wrote that she was committing suicide because she didn't think hellfire would be worse than the situation in Aleppo.
According to the White Helmets, a group of volunteer Syrians, about 100,000 civilians remain trapped in Aleppo.
The group published a plea for the UN and the international community to help the people trapped in Aleppo to cross four kilometers to relative safety. "We cannot believe that the world's most powerful countries cannot get 100,000 souls four kilometers to relative safety," the message read.
