The United Nations said it was “concerned” by the “ongoing hostilities” in Aleppo, warning that the “eastern part of the city remains inaccessible to humanitarian workers, where an estimated 275,000 people remain trapped under horrific conditions.”
“Food and health stocks are running dangerously low in the city,” Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, said at a daily news briefing on Friday.
The UN has not been able to reach the eastern part of the city since July.
“The United Nations urges all parties to the conflict to uphold their obligations, to put an end to indiscriminate bombing and shelling, to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and to enable urgent humanitarian life-saving assistance, as required under international humanitarian and human rights law,” Haq said.
The Syrian Coalition said that the Assad regime and Russian actions in eastern Aleppo are war crimes and crimes against humanity, criticizing the silence of the international community over these crimes. Iran, Russia and the Assad regime are seeking to create “a new military equation” in Syria in order to impose a political solution favorable to the regime, the Coalition added.
Activists in eastern Aleppo said that foodstuffs and basic commodities began to run out from the markets, adding that hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside are threatened with starvation. Dozens, mostly children, died of hunger in other besieged areas, most notably the town of Madaya.
The UN on Thursday issued a bleak warning that the 250,000 civilians still trapped in the divided city are at risk of mass starvation as the winter sets in.
Jan Egeland, the head of a UN-backed humanitarian task force for Syria, said on Thursday that the last remaining food rations were currently being handed out in rebel-held eastern Aleppo and there would be nothing left to distribute next week without a resupply.
Regime forces and Iranian-backed militias, backed by Russian aerial cover, have laid siege on the rebel-held eastern parts of Aleppo for nearly two months. The blockade has caused severe shortages of food and medical supplies, threatening the lives of about 300,000 civilians trapped inside. (Syrian Coalition’s Media Office + Agencies)
