Syrian slaughterhouse shames America and undermines United Nations

The collapse of the Syrian ceasefire negotiated by Russia and America has led to bitter recriminations in the UN Security Council as each blames the other for the breakdown.

Civilians in Aleppo are paying the price.

Humanitarian partners in Eastern Aleppo have told Save the Children International:

One hospital said that 43 per cent of the injured they treated yesterday were children, and the ambulance crew with Shafak, a Syrian NGO, said more than 50 per cent of the casualties they have picked up in the last 48 hours are children.

Doctors are working round the clock to try to save them, but children are dying on the floors of hospitals due to critical shortages of basic medicines and equipment, including ventilators, anaesthetics and antibiotics. Severe cases need to be transferred out of Eastern Aleppo for treatment, but all roads are blocked.

Sonia Khush, Save the Children's Syria Director, pleaded:

The UN Security Council has a chance to right the wrong and prevent more suffering when it meets today in New York. They cannot leave the room until they agree an immediate ceasefire, with roads opened to allow us to bring desperately needed food, clean water and medical supplies in.

The information they have provided paints a picture of unimaginable violence and suffering for children and their families.

The Security Council predictably could agree on nothing.

America had failed to positively respond to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's warning on 2 June 2015:

The U.S.'s 'obsession' with [Syria's President] Assad isn't helping in the common fight against the threat from Islamic State…

People put the fate of one person whom they hate above the fight against terrorism. Islamic State can go 'very far' unless stopped, and air strikes alone 'are not going to do the trick'

US State Department spokesperson Marie Harf had quickly dismissed Lavrov's message – telling reporters that:

… we're certainly not going to coordinate with a brutal dictator who's massacred so many of his own citizens.

That's just an absurd proposition. That's certainly not going to happen.