JEDDAH/NEW YORK: The United Nations General Assembly voted 122 to 13 on Friday to demand an immediate cessation of hostilities in Syria, humanitarian aid access throughout the country and an end to all sieges, including in Aleppo.

Thirty-six countries abstained in the vote on the Canadian-drafted resolution on the nearly six-year-old Syrian conflict. General Assembly resolutions are non-binding but can carry political weight.

Voting in favor of the resolution, Abdullah Al-Mouallimi, Saudi ambassador to the UN, called for an emergency session of the General Assembly in order to examine what is happening in Aleppo, announcing that Saudi Arabia voted in favor of the proposal.

He said: “We will discuss avoiding the shortcomings and weaknesses of the Canadian proposal.”

US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power told the General Assembly before the vote: “This is a vote to stand up and tell Russia and Assad to stop the carnage.”

Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters on Thursday of the resolution: “To expect that it is going to produce some kind of dramatic U-turn in the situation in Syria is unrealistic.” Canadian UN Ambassador Marc-Andre Blanchard acknowledged that the resolution was not a solution to the conflict, but an important statement.

The regime resumed airstrikes on remaining opposition-held territory in east Aleppo on Friday, a day after regime ally Moscow announced a “pause” in the assault, a monitor said.

On Thursday evening, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the regime’s army was halting its three-week operation to recapture east Aleppo in order to allow the evacuation of civilians.

In the hours after the announcement, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a correspondent in east Aleppo said airstrikes had halted, though heavy artillery fire continued.

But on Friday afternoon, the Britain-based Observatory, a monitor of the war, said the government’s air raids had resumed, targeting several of the few neighborhoods in the east still held by the rebels.

Lavrov said Aleppo will continue to be bombed by the Moscow-backed regime as long as the opposition remains in the devastated city.

“After a humanitarian pause, (the strikes) have resumed and will continue for as long as the bandits are still in Aleppo,” Lavrov told journalists.

Lavrov also accused the US of stalling talks on evacuating the opposition-held parts of Aleppo, and said it was taking “strange” and contradictory positions.

The UN warned on Friday hundreds of men may have gone missing after fleeing into regime-controlled parts of Aleppo, saying armed groups were reportedly blocking civilians from leaving the shrinking areas under their control.

As the regime’s artillery pummeled the opposition territory in Aleppo, the UN rights office said both sides appeared to be operating in “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law,” and that civilians were paying the price.

He said the men were aged 30 to 50, and their family members said they had lost contact with them after they fled opposition-controlled areas of Aleppo around a week or 10 days ago.

“Given the terrible record of arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances by the Syrian regime, we are of course deeply concerned about the fate of these individuals,” Colville said.

Meanwhile, an opposition activist group said 49 Syrian soldiers have been killed in an advance by Daesh militants near the historic city of Palmyra, reported the observatory.