20,000 children flee Aleppo: UN

Syrian rebels in fierce defence of key Aleppo district

GENEVA: Nearly 20,000 children have fled their homes in battered east Aleppo in recent days, the UN said on Friday, warning that time is running out to provide them with the help they desperately need.

The UN said some 31,500 people had fled their homes in opposition-held east Aleppo since November 24, when the Syrian government intensified its brutal offensive to retake the entire city.

The UN children´s agency Unicef estimates that around 60 percent of those displaced -- around 19,000 -- are children.

The number of displaced children could be far higher: the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights puts the overall number of people on the run from the violence in east Aleppo at more than 50,000 since Saturday.

"What is critical now is that we provide the immediate and sustained assistance that these children and their families desperately need," Unicef spokesman Christophe Boulierac told reporters in Geneva.

"It´s a race against time, as winter is here and conditions are basic," he added.

He said Unicef had "winter clothing and blankets ... ready for distribution (to) at least help to provide some protection from the freezing temperatures."

The UN refugee agency meanwhile warned on Friday that the main focus now in providing aid to those flooding out of east Aleppo is "the rapidly growing shelter needs".

"Many of those who have fled eastern districts are now in unfinished or partly destroyed buildings," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters.

"Unsanitary conditions and overcrowding are already challenges in a congested city with few open spaces," he said, pointing out that even before the latest exodus from east Aleppo there were already some 400,000 displaced people in the government-held west of the city.

In addition to trying to provide shelter, food, healthcare and other physical assistance to the displaced, the UN is also providing much needed psychological support, he said.

Meanwhile, rebels put up fierce resistance on Friday in a key district of Syria´s battered Aleppo, where a regime offensive has left bodies in the streets and sparked global outrage.

The government assault on the northern city has spurred a mass exodus of tens of thousands of residents from the opposition-held east and prompted fresh calls by Russia for aid corridors.

President Bashar al-Assad´s forces captured northeast Aleppo this week and were focused on seizing Sheikh Saeed, a large district on the city´s southeast edges.

But anti-government fighters fought back strongly there overnight, rolling back recent government gains, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"The regime and allied fighters... wanted to take this neighbourhood at any cost, because capturing it would allow them to target all remaining rebel-held districts," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

"But rebels put up ferocious resistance, because they knew they would be trapped if Sheikh Saeed fell," he added.

Abdel Rahman said opposition forces now once again controlled at least 70 percent of the neighbourhood.

Sheikh Saeed borders the last remaining sections of Aleppo still in rebel hands -- a collection of densely populated residential neighbourhoods where thousands have sought refuge from advancing regime forces.

In preparation for street-by-street fighting in these districts, hundreds of fighters from Syria´s elite Republican Guard and Fourth Division arrived in Aleppo on Friday, the Observatory said.