Story highlights UN official urges action before Aleppo "becomes one giant graveyard"

France warns of biggest massacre since World War II

(CNN) The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Wednesday on the dire humanitarian situation in the Syrian city of Aleppo, which a UN official described as a "descent into hell."

"For the sake of humanity, we call on, we plead with the parties and those with influence to do everything in their power to protect civilians and enable access to the besieged part of eastern Aleppo before it becomes one giant graveyard," UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien told council members during the meeting.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called for the meeting a day earlier. He told Reuters that Syria's brutal civil war, which has raged for almost six years, would not be resolved with one of the "biggest massacres on a civilian population since World War Two."

Syrians flee from eastern Aleppo on Tuesday, lining up to get onto government buses.

"This (Security Council) meeting would have to find a way to deal with the humanitarian situation and see how we can get aid in. We have to find a way," Ayrault said.

Syrian regime forces entered eastern Aleppo by ground Saturday in an operation to wrest control of the area from rebels, who have ruled there for more than four years.

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