Civilians face ‘catastrophe’ as battle for city escalates

The United Nations humanitarian adviser says the besieged population of eastern Aleppo faces a ‘‘very bleak moment’’ with no food or medical supplies, winter approaching, and an increasingly fierce attack by Syrian and allied forces.

Syrian rebels fought fiercely with pro-government forces trying to advance into opposition-held areas of eastern Aleppo yesterday, while warplanes kept up their bombardment of the area in a renewed bid by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to retake the entire city.

Violence also escalated in and around Damascus, where government forces bombarded the city’s rebel-held eastern outskirts and rebels fired rockets into the government-controlled city centre, witnesses said.

‘‘Virtually all warehouses are now empty, and tens of thousands of families are running out of food and all other supplies,’’ UN humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said in Geneva.

‘‘So this is a very bleak moment, and we are not talking about a tsunami here; we are talking about a man-made catastrophe.’’

Syrian government forces and allied militia renewed a heavy bombardment of rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Wednesday, after a pause of several weeks. Russia, whose air force is bombing in support of Assad, says it has not taken part in the latest Aleppo attack. Moscow has, however, escalated its role in the war, launching attacks on other rebel-held areas from the sea.

The government, backed by the Russian air force and Shi’ite militias, has this year steadily closed in on eastern Aleppo, first besieging a population estimated by the UN to number 270,000 and then launching a major assault in September.

Mohamad Abboush, an east Aleppo resident, said an air strike killed a 45-year-old uncle and a 12-year-old cousin. As his family sought medical care for other relatives wounded in the attack, they found one hospital in ruins and another in flames.

The air strike had destroyed a Virtually all warehouses are now empty, and tens of thousands of families are running out of food and all other supplies. four-storey apartment block where his relatives had been living in the Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood, he said. The survivors had been taken to houses in another area, but nowhere was safe.

‘‘The whole of Aleppo bombed,’’ he said.

Heavy bombardment also took place in the rebel-held area of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. A witness said the shelling and air strikes were the worst seen for at least a year.

While the government side has unleashed enormous firepower, its advances into rebel-held areas of Aleppo since September have been limited. The rebel forces are deeply entrenched and say they are well prepared for urban warfare.

Sources on both sides said progovernment militias were being mobilised in large numbers.

The Britain-based Syrian is being Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had targeted areas near three hospitals to keep them out of service. The government has previously denied such accusations.

Egeland said rebel groups in Aleppo had agreed in principle to a UN humanitarian relief plan that would allow medical workers, medical supplies and food into eastern Aleppo and allow the evacuation of the sick and wounded, but operational details had yet to be agreed. Russia had given positive signals about the plan but had not given an official green light.

The United Nations had hoped to send convoys with aid for 1 million Syrians in besieged or hard-to-reach areas this month, but so far not one has reached its destination.

Doctors in Aleppo have said they will move its underground children’s hospital after it was bombed for the second time in three days as part of the intensified wave of air attacks.

Scores of shells and barrel bombs fell yesterday, including at least one containing chlorine, according to the doctors. ‘‘The smell of TNT and chlorine is everywhere,’’ said one.

More than 100 civilians had died since the regime’s blitz restarted, said the Syrian American Medical Society (Sams), which funds hospitals in opposition areas. It said three of the enclave’s seven hospitals had been hit, and that the children’s hospital must have been a target, because it had been hit twice.

‘‘Patients went to hospitals that were bombed shortly thereafter,’’ Adham Sahloul, a Sams spokesman, said. ‘‘The regime is trying to force a surrender. It is using everything in its arsenal to choke and then forcibly displace Aleppo’s residents.’’

Sams said children affected by chlorine gas were being treated in the hospital when it was hit.