Many Aleppo children trapped in building under attack, says UNICEF

Many unaccompanied children, possibly more than 100, are trapped in a building that is under heavy attack in besieged eastern Aleppo in Syria, the U.N. children's agency UNICEF said in a statement on Tuesday, citing an unnamed doctor in the city.

"According to alarming reports from a doctor in the city, many children, possibly more than 100, unaccompanied or separated from their families, are trapped in a building, under heavy attack in east Aleppo," UNICEF Regional Director Geert Cappelaere said in the statement. UNICEF regional director, Geert Cappelaere, says it is "time for the world to stand up for the children of Aleppo and bring their living nightmare to an end."

Pro-Assad forces have launched a ferocious assault on Aleppo's few remaining opposition-held neighborhoods, trapping thousands of civilians under unrelenting heavy fire. There are unconfirmed reports that Assad forces are killing civilians. Cappelaere says that UNICEF is "deeply concerned" over the unverified reports of the "extrajudicial killings of civilians, including children."