Britain has called for the UN Human Rights Council to hold an urgent meeting on the deteriorating situation in the Syrian suburb of Eastern Ghouta, after ceasefires there failed to stem the violence.

Julian Braithwaite, UK ambassador to the UN, said in a letter to the Council that he would seek the adoption of a resolution on a 30-day ceasefire that was unanimously passed last week but has yet to take effect.

UN delegates traded blame at a heated meeting on Wednesday night, where the world body’s humanitarian chief chastised the security council for overseeing the stalled ceasefire.

“When will your resolution be implemented?” Mark Lowcock asked the security council meeting. “Unless this changes we will soon see even more people dying from starvation and disease than from the bombing and the shelling.”

Moscow unilaterally declared its own, less ambitious five-hour daily “humanitarian pause” in Eastern Ghouta, which began on Tuesday, but it has been ignored by even its ally, the Syrian government.

Jan Egeland, head of the UN's humanitarian taskforce for Syria, also said the resolution has so far done little to improve the situation for the some 400,000 residents.

"Since it was adopted, it did not get better - it got worse," he said.