Civilians in Aleppo are most 'vulnerable people on Earth,' UN says

About 30,000 people are receiving aid after fleeing the besieged eastern zone of Aleppo in the past few days, taking the total number of displaced people in the Syrian city to more than 400,000, UNspecial envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday.

By Wednesday, about 18,000 people had been registered entering government controlled areas, and about 8,500 crossing into Sheikh Maqsoud, the Kurdish-controlled zone of Aleppo, de Mistura's humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland told reporters.

He said those figures were likely to have risen on Thursday.

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A ground and air campaign by Syrian government forces and their Russian and Lebanese allies that began in September has cut off rebels in their most important urban stronghold, and left around 250,000 civilians with rapidly dwindling food and medical facilities.

Rebels losing ground

On Sunday and Monday, the city's rebels suffered their biggest reversal in four years, losing about a third of the area they had controlled.

Syria and Russia have declined a United Nations request for a pause in the fighting to evacuate 400 sick and wounded in need of immediate treatment, but Russia wants to discuss the idea of setting up four humanitarian corridors,Egelandsaid, adding: "A humanitarian corridor can work if all the armed actors respect it."

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Turkey and Russia held talks on Thursdayonthe deteriorating conditions in eastern Aleppo but gave no indication they were close to aceasefire, only said they agreed on the need for one.

Russia backs President Basharal-Assad and Turkey supports rebel factions fighting to topple the Syrian leader.

200,000 stranded

The United Nations has food for 150,000 people ready in western Aleppo, but it still cannot reach roughly 200,000 who remain in the enclave, where food stocks have run out and surgery is being done in basements without anaesthetic, he said.

The United Nations is scaling up its presence in western Aleppo to help with the aid effort but also to monitor the treatment of people fleeing the besieged zone.

"Thereare no more vulnerable people on Earth, probably, than the civilian population in Aleppo," saidEgeland. "And they areextremely vulnerable for possible actions by the armed opposition groups as they try to leave and by all of the groups that will meet them as they leave."

Red Cross in talks with Syrian government

The International Committee of the Red Cross is in talks with the Syrian government to gain access to people being screened or detained after fleeing the siege, a seniorICRCofficial told Reuters.

Although 30,000 were known to have fled to the western sector, countless others were likely to have escaped in other directions, and the number could rise by tens of thousands, theICRCsaid in a statement.

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Egelandsaid the top priority remained a pause in the fighting, as well as finding shelter for people as winter begins.

Elsewhere in Syria, aid convoys reached the four besieged towns ofFoua,Kufreya,MadayaandZabadanithis week. But overall, only eight per cent of Syria's besieged population received aid in November.

Rules of war 'systematically disregarded'

Parties to the Syrian conflict have systematically disregarded the laws of war, showing time and again that they are willing to do anything to gain military advantage, UNhumanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien told an emergency meeting of the Security Councilvia video link from London on Wednesday.

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"There are no limits or red lines left to cross. The rules of war sacrosanct notions borne out of generations of costly and painful lessons and set more than 150 year ago in the First Geneva Convention have been systematically disregarded in Syria," O'Brien said

Calls for emergency UN special session

Expressing frustration at the UNSecurity Council's inability to stop the bombardment of the besieged city, a coalition of over 223human rights groups is calling for the General Assembly to hold an emergency special session to demand an end to the attacks.

The appeal comes after Russia vetoed a UN resolution demanding an end to the aerial bombardment of Aleppo on Oct. 8, effectively blocking action in the 15-member Security Council, where it is one of five permanent, veto-holding members.

The human rights groups are calling on member states to bring the matter before the full 193-member General Assembly, whose resolutions are non-binding but senda strong message from the international community.

SherineTadros, head of Amnesty International's UNoffice, said the organizations from 45 countries who have signed on in support of the appeal were just "a small but very potent indication of the frustration we all feel about the inability of the world body to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people."