Aleppo residents risk mass starvation, UN warns

The United Nations has urged the Syrian government, Russia and rebel groups to immediately allow food deliveries to besieged areas of eastern Aleppo, issuing 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.

Al Jazeera reports that Jan Egeland, the head of a UN-backed humanitarian task force for Syria, said 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.

"I don't think anybody wants a quarter of a million people to be starving in east Aleppo," Egeland said, referring to the number of civilians the UN says are living under siege.

He urged all sides - the regime, its key ally Russia and the opposition fighters - to grant humanitarian access, adding that with winter approaching it was the only way to avoid mass starvation.

Aleppo has been devastated by fighting since the rebels seized the east of the city in 2012, turning its historic heart into a battlefield.

The army cut the last supply route into rebel-held territory in July, leaving more than 250,000 civilians still living there without access to basic goods.