UN says 2 million people in Aleppo are without running water

A UN official says nearly 2 million people in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo are without running water as security conditions deteriorate.

A UN official says nearly 2 million people in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo are without running water as security conditions deteriorate.

A boy inspects a damaged site after airstrikes on the rebel held Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria September 23, 2016. (Reuters)

Hanaa Singer, UNICEF representative in Syria, says intense attacks after midnight Thursday have damaged the Bab al-Nairab station that supplies some 250,000 people in rebel-held eastern parts of the contested city with water.

Singer said that in retaliation, the Suleiman al-Halabi pumping station, also located in the rebel-held east, was switched off — cutting water to 1.5 million people in government-held western parts of the city.

“Depriving children of water puts them at risk of catastrophic outbreaks of water-borne diseases,” Singer warned in her statement released late Friday.

Fighting in Aleppo intensified recently after a one-week U.S.-Russia-brokered cease-fire collapsed.