United Nations says Syria crisis worsening

The United Nations is estimating that 13.5 million people in Syria, including more than six million children, are now in need of humanitarian assistance and a few form of protection.

At least 80,000 people were displaced in Idlib and Hama governorates but local humanitarian organisations say that number could be more than 100,000, the report said.

Upwards of 120,000 Syrians were displaced in October in the center of the area from which Syrian government forces, aided by Russian airstrikes, are launching a ground offensive, the United Nations said Monday.

“Fighting and violence has forced over half of the people in Syria from their homes in a period of just over four years, many of them multiple times”, he noted.

“This includes a few 45,000 people displaced from the southern outskirts of Aleppo city to relatively safer areas to the west and south following a government forces offensive over the last week”, he added.

The Syrian National Coalition, the main Western-backed opposition group, said on Monday that indiscriminate Russian aerial attacks are now the leading killer of civilians.

Russian Federation says it has destroyed more than 800 terrorist targets in Syria since it began its campaign of air strikes on September 30, an intervention Moscow says is aimed at destroying extremist Islamic militants, but which Washington says is also targeting moderate rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met last week with his American, Saudi and Turkish counterparts in Vienna to exchange ideas over an end to the conflict in Syria.

Oman had previously been reported as attempting to broker a meeting between officials from Syria, Iran and arch-rival Saudi Arabia.