United Nations Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien has voiced anger and dismay on Monday at the world powers’ inability to agree on a truce to allow badly needed humanitarian aid to Aleppo.

He also expressed fear that this major city in the north of Syria is facing an imminent humanitarian “catastrophe” unless there is an immediate agreement to cease fire.

In a poignant appeal to the UN Security Council, now meeting for the third time on Aleppo, O’Brien said: “I am not going to pretend. I am angry, very angry. As the UN’s humanitarian chief, this callous carnage that is Syria has long since moved from the cynical, to the sinful. What is happening in Aleppo today and throughout Syria over the last five years is an outrage against every moral fibre in our being as human beings, as fellow human beings, with every Syrian caught up in this unending cataclysm. And it is the failure of politics, of all of us; you know this as members of the Security Council. So please: now is the moment this instant to put differences aside, come together as one and stop this humanitarian shame upon us all, once and for all.” 

The death toll in Syria over five years of ruthless war puts indeed a stigma on all humanity. Now Aleppo, this once thriving city, is being bombed every day and major powers, each with its vested interest in the region, are incapable or unwilling to reach an agreement for, at least, a ceasefire to ease the plight of the people of Aleppo. 

In its eastern part, some 275,000 people, still there, have been deprived of food, water, medicine and electricity for over a month now. 

About 1.5 million people in other parts of the city also face severe shortages of all basic needs. 

The US and other Western powers expressed support for an immediate truce in Aleppo and other parts of Syria. Russia had agreed in principle to the requested 48-hour truce, but continued its indiscriminate aerial bombardment of the city. 

The catastrophe facing Aleppo was triggered by the Syrian regime’s move, supported by Russia, to encircle the eastern part of the city about a month ago, hoping to achieve a total military victory over the opposition. 

No side in the conflict in Syria is blameless, but the regime, backed by Russian airpower, is the bigger contributor to the death toll in the country.

The UN official did not name the part primarily responsible for the alarming situation in Aleppo, adopting the “neutral” stance the UN usually does in a conflict, but this does not serve peace or justice in Syria, in general, and in Aleppo, in particular. 

Moscow and Damascus pursue the military solution, convinced of their superiority, and the hodgepodge of opposition groups revel in the chance to settle scores, carry out their most barbarous fantasies and perpetuate a war they have little chance to win but that brings them immediate gratification of the basest kind.

“This is the greatest crisis of our time.... The Syrian people have faced an onslaught of unspeakable violence. The reports are endless: barrel bombs, hellfire cannons, cluster munitions, chemical weapons, thermite bombs, napalm, suicide bombs, mortars and rockets, snipers, bombs landing on schools, hospitals and civilian neighbourhoods, rape, illegal detention, torture, child recruitment, sieges of entire cities, starving people to death deliberately. All when you have the power with a pen — a simple pen stroke — to allow food to people. It is a chilling thought that these actions and levels of sufferings have been tolerated, with only limited international interference.”

O’Brien’s words could not be more indicting. Of the UN, of humanity in general, who seems to have forgot to be humane.