In its role as leader of the European Union during this half of the year, Italy needs to push for a global political solution. The military solution has been a failure. Already 160,000 people have died, including 12,000 children, and 6 million people have become refugees, inside and outside Syria. The solution should be political, but also humanitarian. It should start in Aleppo: through a special plan that involves all parties, including Assad, and the subsequent creation of a humanitarian corridor and a special bridge of help for a city which also faces a threat from the lack of water.

The humanitarian drama in Syria is not just an issue for the Middle East, it concerns the whole world. UNICEF, many parliamentarians, Italian and international personalities have already backed the call from Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio, to save Aleppo: the city that has become a symbol of a war that risks destabilising the entire Middle East and putting an end to the idea of harmony between religions and ethnic groups, after centuries of cohabitation.

The honourable Dellai and Marazziti have made an urgent call to the Italian government. In a setting of international impotence and faced with an upheaval in the northern Mediterranean area, renewed escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, border changes between Iraq and Syria and the forced “islamisation” of entire areas,  it is especially from Aleppo that new hope could emerge. The Vice-Minister Pistelli responded by guaranteeing an extraordinary commitment from Italy to launch new humanitarian pathways in cooperation with Turkey and to submit the appeal to the entire Italian government.

“Taking note of the commitment and attention that the Italian government has shown to the crisis in Syria,” said Marazziti-- “but faced with the difficulties the international community has in identifying an effective solution for this conflict, while the noise of war and suffering continues to prevent requests for help to reach us, I ask the entire government to sign the Save Aleppo call and take it to Europe.”

 http://www.santegidio.org/pageID/3/langID/en/itemID/9357/Save_Aleppo_sign_the_appeal.html