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United Nations Nations Unies Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS AND EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR, STEPHEN O’BRIEN STATEMENT TO THE SECURITY COUNCIL ON SYRIA New York, 21 November 2016 Checked against delivery Mr President, As we meet again this month, the suffering of civilians in Aleppo and across Syria rages on unabated. Horror is now usual – it is a level of violence and destruction that the world appears to consider normal for Syria and normal for the Syrian people. Month after month I have reported to this Council that the level of depravity inflicted upon the Syrian people cannot sink lower, only to return the following month with hideous and, with shocking disbelief, new reports of ever-worsening human suffering. Mr. President, I am more or less at my wits’ end as a human being – but I’m here, like my colleagues, to be professional, to be objective. I had hoped to say today that last month I put it all on the table and frankly, it’s still just as terrible and leave it at that – shame on us all for not acting to stop the annihilation of eastern Aleppo and its people and much of the rest of Syria too. All the facts and reports I gave last month have, not one of them, been changed, qualified, denied or proven wrong, by any one of you or anyone beyond this room. My statement then detailed the objective reality of what was taking place in Aleppo, and it was hoped that the advocacy undertaken by me and by others – demands that sanity and humanity prevail, and reporting based on clear and undisputable facts, even though sometimes unpleasant to hear and maybe even an inconvenient truth – could have an impact. And there was a glimmer of hope. A unilateral Russian and Syrian pause on aerial bombardment over eastern Aleppo, instituted on 18 October for an initial 72 hours, was maintained beyond the stated end. We last met on 26 October when I welcomed the then continuing pause in airstrikes from the Russian Federation and the Government of Syria – although you will recall my welcome was not heard that day in all quarters of this Council. Day by day, even week by week, the pause held over eastern Aleppo. The same was not the case for western Aleppo, as non-State armed groups launched hundreds of mortars into civilian areas in the western part of the city. Had all parties had the fortitude to cease all attacks over Aleppo, today’s may have been a different briefing. But I can’t leave it at that because, you can scarcely believe it, it is even worse now