UN pleads with Assad over food aid stuck at Syria border

Food aid for rebel-held east Aleppo, which has been stalled at the Syrian border since last week, will go bad on Monday, the UN said today, urging the country's leader to clear the delivery.
"Forty trucks are sitting at the Turkish-Syrian border. The food will be expiring on Monday," the head of the United Nations humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, told reporters in Geneva today.
"The drivers are sleeping at the border and they have done so now for now a week, so please, President Assad, do your bit to enable us to get to eastern Aleppo and also the other besieged areas," Egeland added, in a direct appeal to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.