The last remaining food rations are currently being handed out in Syria’s rebel-held eastern Aleppo and there will be nothing left to distribute next week without a resupply, the UN says.
United Nations aid convoys have not reached the besieged eastern part of Aleppo since July, when regime forces cut off the last supply route.
“The reports we have now from within East Aleppo is that the last food rations are being distributed as we speak,” the head of a UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, tells journalists.
Syrian pro-government forces walk past a pick-up truck mounted with an anti-aircraft machine gun as they hold a position in Aleppo’s 1070 district on November 8, 2016, after seizing it from rebel fighters. (AFP PHOTO / GEORGES OURFALIAN)
Egeland insists that, with winter approaching, the need to avoid mass starvation would force all sides — including the regime, its key ally Russia and the rebels — to grant humanitarian access.
“I don’t think anybody wants a quarter of a million people to be starving in east Aleppo,” Egeland says, referring to the number of civilians the UN says are living under siege.
While the UN has mostly blamed President Bashar Assad’s government for blocking access to the battleground area, rebel commanders have reportedly also failed to provide essential security guarantees.
— AFP
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