The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura is willing to go to eastern Aleppo and escort up to 1,000 Islamist fighters out of the city for the sake of a halt to the bombardment by Russian and Syrian forces, he said on Thursday. De Mistura said history would judge Syria and Russia if they used the presence of about 900 former Nusra Front fighters as an "easy alibi" to destroy the besieged area, killing thousands of the 275,000 citizens, 100,000 of whom are children. "The bottom line is in a maximum of two months, two and a half months, the city of eastern Aleppo at this rate may be totally destroyed. We are talking about the old city in particular," he told a news conference in Geneva.
