UN invited to monitor and assist fresh evacuation efforts under way in war-ravaged Aleppo
| Publisher | UN News Service |
| Publication Date | 15 December 2016 |
| Cite as | UN News Service, UN invited to monitor and assist fresh evacuation efforts under way in war-ravaged Aleppo, 15 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5853d09640c.html [accessed 21 May 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
15 December 2016 - The United Nations was today invited to monitor and assist in the renewed effort to evacuate sick and wounded civilians and opposition fighters from the remaining rebel-held areas of Syria's war-ravaged city of Aleppo, a senior UN humanitarian envoy announced today.
Following today's meeting in Geneva of the Humanitarian Access Task Force of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), Jan Egeland, the UN Senior Adviser on Syria, detailed the UN's three-pronged evacuation plan, a plan he hoped would be "the start of a last and successful attempt of evacuations."
The plan includes medical evacuations for the wounded and sick, evacuations for vulnerable civilians, and evacuations of fighters. The agreement was not made on behalf of the UN, but rather through direct talks of the various parties to the Syrian war, he explained.
The UN will monitor the evacuations with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Representatives from all organizations are ready to accompany those being evacuated from eastern Aleppo, Idlib, and elsewhere all the way to Turkey and into Turkey, should that be their final destination.
According to Mr. Egeland, Russia will also monitor the situation and ensure that the evacuations that follow are "swift, [non-bureaucratic] and non-intrusive" and that those being evacuated would be guaranteed safety.
