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Food rations about to run out in east Aleppo, UN official warns

Xinhua, November 11, 2016 Adjust font size:

Jan Egeland, the UN special adviser on Syria, on Thursday said that he feels that "this will be the worst winter in the five-year war" in Syria as food rations are about to run out in east Aleppo, a city in north Syria, a UN spokesman told reporters here.

"Some of the areas are freezing cold, and people will be in need of digging themselves down in the ground in extreme cases because they cannot be reached to receive humanitarian aid," Egeland was quoted by UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric as saying at a daily news briefing here.

The special adviser said that "the reports we have now from within east Aleppo is that the last food rations are being distributed, and there will be nothing more to distribute next week."

He said that "we have a UN initiative for east Aleppo that has four parts, involving medical supplies into the medical facilities in east Aleppo; medical evacuations out of east Aleppo for the estimated 300 or so patients that are in urgent need of medical evacuation, the delivery of food and other urgent supplies to east Aleppo, and the deployment of more medical personnel to provide relief in east Aleppo."

Egeland, a senior Norwegian diplomat, was the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator from June 2003 to December 2006.

"There is no doubt it will be the worst in this cruel war and I fear that it will be a real killer in many places," he said. "No place are we so worried at this time as for the quarter of a million civilians in east Aleppo."

The last time aid reached eastern districts of what was once Syria's economic hub and largest city was in July this year.

The scene of intense ground fighting pitching forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against rebel factions seeking to oust him, east Aleppo is also running low on food.

If warring factions give the go-ahead, relief teams on the ground would need 72 hours to prepare operations and a few days and nights to carry out their objectives, he said.

Meanwhile, Egeland also reminded that conditions in other besieged and hard-to-reach areas in Syria are extremely concerning as a result of the conflict which broke out in March 2011.

Some 400,000 people have died during the five-year war while millions more have been displaced by fighting and reigning insecurity. Enditem