BEIRUT : Desperately needed humanitarian assistance entered a besieged rebel-held town near Syria's capital on Sunday, the Red Cross said, in the first aid deliveries there in nearly three months.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said a joint operation with the United Nations had brought in 24 trucks full of humanitarian relief to Douma. ICRC spokeswoman Ingy Sedky told AFP the deliveries included medicine, food parcels and nutrition items for 21,500 people. "The last delivery to Douma was on August 17," Sedky confirmed.

Douma is the main town in the Eastern Ghouta region, an opposition-held enclave that is home to up to 400,000 people and which has been under a crippling government siege since 2013. The blockade has caused serious food and medicine shortages, and pushed the prices for what remains beyond the reach of impoverished residents.

Jan Egeland, the head of the UN's humanitarian taskforce for Syria, dubbed Eastern Ghouta "the epicentre of suffering" in the country. "Around 400 men, women, children... need to be evacuated now," said Egeland, adding that 29 of them, including 18 children, "will die if they are not evacuated".