The United Nations is warning nearly 1 million Syrians are living under siege—double the number last year. The vast majority, 850,000 people, are being besieged by Syrian government forces. On Monday, U.N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien said civilians trapped in besieged eastern Aleppo, where the final hospitals have been destroyed by Syrian government bombing, are facing “annihilation.” This is O’Brien.

Stephen O’Brien: “I call on all with influence—that’s the phrase I am diplomatically required to use, but you know around this table and beyond who you are—to do their part to end these senseless cycles of violence once and for all, to put an end to the slaughterhouse that is Aleppo.”