BEIRUT: The United Nations implored all sides in the Syria conflict to allow food deliveries to rebel-held eastern Aleppo where roughly 250,000 residents, under siege for months, just received their last rations. Russia appeared to reject the plea. "I don't think anybody wants a quarter of a million people to be starving in east Aleppo," Jan Egeland, the UN official charge of a humanitarian task force for Syria, told reporters at the organ Geneva headquarters. Food supplies have not been replenished in eastern Aleppo since mid-July, Mr Ege- land said. "The last food rations are being distributed as we speak," he said. "There will not be more to distribute next week. The divided city of Aleppo has become a prime battleground in the war pitting an alliance of Western-backed rebel groups and jihadi fighters against the forces of