THE story of Aleppo in Syria is a tragic one.
Russian war planes and Assad’s guns are flattening one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth.
Some predict Aleppo will be gone by Christmas.
An estimated 250,000 people are trapped, barricaded in by the regime, while cluster and bunker bombs rain down from the skies.
Assad maintains he’s rooting out dangerous Islamist rebels, but the scale of the carnage would indicate another aim.
As always, it is the innocent civilian population that suffers most, with aid workers like the White Helmets heroically digging the dead and injured out from under the rubble.
This week, a new level of barbarity was reached when the last hospital these rescue workers could use was intentionally targeted in what is being described as a war crime.
The question on everyone’s lips is what can the West do?
My parliamentary colleague Andrew Mitchell attempted to answer it during an emergency debate in the Commons on Tuesday.
He suggested imposing a no-fly zone if the war continued, but that would need a willingness by the West to shoot down any aircraft breaching the zone.
The implications of such a move are obvious.
Add to this the West’s reluctance to act without a UN mandate.
Such a move was vetoed by Russia this week and that’s unlikely to change.
Russia has much to gain from this conflict militarily.
She already has access to a port and now has a permanent air base, too.
Some would argue that this war is none of our business and we should learn from the past and keep out.
I don’t think we can, but the West must start showing a unity of purpose if we are to really begin challenging this inhumanity.