The Syria war has reached “unprecedented levels of horror”, UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said on Tuesday after dozens of men were killed in a grim new massacre.
Brahimi told the divided UN Security Council that it must now act to halt the carnage epitomised by the nearly 80 young men killed with a single bullet and dumped in a river in the battlefront city of Aleppo.

Syrian rebels blamed President Bashar al-Assad’s government for the killings, but state media said an Islamist opposition faction was to blame.

Syria “is breaking up before everyone’s eyes. Only the international community can help, and first and foremost the Security Council,” Brahimi told the council’s 15 ambassadors, apologising for sounding like a “broken old record.”

Twenty-two months of conflict have now left well over 60,000 dead, according to the UN, which on Wednesday will seek $1.5 billion in humanitarian funding for beleaguered Syrians at a conference in Kuwait.

“The tragedy does not have an end,” Brahimi said.

The Assad government’s legitimacy has been “irreparably damaged,” Brahimi said, however warning that it could still cling to power. He added that both the state and the rebel opposition were committing “equally atrocious crimes.”