BEIRUT, AP, 9 FEB. 2016– The United Nations says hundreds of thousands of people in Syria’s largest city could be soon cut off from humanitarian aid amid blistering Syrian and Russian airstrikes and is calling on Turkish authorities to open the border to help those fleeing the violence.
The U.N. humanitarian office OCHA says 300,000 people could be cut off from aid if the Syrian government and allied forces encircle Aleppo and deprive those fleeing from their last way out. Laying out contingency plans, OCHA said local leaders believe up to 150,000 people could try to flee to nearby Afrin and the surrounding countryside.
The refugee agency UNHCR also called on Turkey to open its borders to allow in people who have already fled Aleppo and who have gathered by the thousands near the Syrian-Turkish border.
Turkey’s prime minister is calling on the international community to speak out against Russia for “mercilessly bombing civilian targets” in Syria.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also says Tuesday that Russia will eventually retreat from Syria in “embarrassment” — in a similar manner to the Soviet forces who once left Afghanistan.
Davutoglu was speaking to legislators of his ruling party as tens of thousands of Syrians who fled a Russian-backed Syrian onslaught around the city of Aleppo massed at the border with Turkey.
Turkey is already home to 2.5 million Syrian refugees. Davutoglu insisted that Turkey has not shut its borders to refugees even though it has not let in the new wave of arrivals. A senior government official said Turkey would care for the Syrians within their borders “as much as possible.”
An international rights group said Syrian government forces and the Russian military have been carrying out daily cluster bomb attacks over the past two weeks in Syria, killing 37 people. The Human Rights Watch report said that cluster munitions, which are widely banned, have been used in at least 14 attacks across five provinces since Jan. 26.