TSKHINVALI - Amid the ruins and tanks in the South Ossetian capital, the remaining residents share out scant goods and wonder why humanitarian aid promised by Russia has not arrived.

"People are scared of looters now. They're coming to me for locks," said Valerly Lavoyev, 52, a builder and the owner of a small household goods store that lies shuttered like every other shop.

Lavoyev says he is giving away all his goods to needy residents, including tape for windows, buckets to collect water and kerosene for lamps - the city has no electricity.

There are normally 20,000 people in Tskhinvali. Now it is a ghost town. The few people left, most of them elderly, gather outside houses to discuss the latest political developments and protect their homes from looting.

Tanks rolled past a queue waiting at the bakery for free loaves of bread.

Asked about humanitarian aid from Russia, Lavoyev said: "We're really not getting anything ... it's very badly organised. I just thank God that my home and family are safe. I'm not counting on anything else."

Nearby, 80-year-old Lidiya Dzhuyeva sat under a pine tree in the destroyed main square waiting for a bus across the border to Vladikavkaz - the capital of Russian North Ossetia.

There she is to attend the funeral of her nephew, a South Ossetian fighter killed in action.

"We haven't received any humanitarian assistance. We're still living in the cellar. The house is gone. The conditions are very bad. We don't have any water," said Dzhuyeva, sitting in a flowery dress next to some relatives.

Ira Kokoyeva, 72, also sitting in the square, said she had to go to Vladikavkaz to receive injections that she could not get in Tskhinvali.

Her husband Nikolai, a South Ossetian fighter, was also killed in action.

"We had to bury him in the back garden. They were shelling us," said Kokoyeva.

On another street, Lyuda Valiyeva, 56, looked on as Russian emergency workers took her sister out of the cellar on a stretcher.

"A lot of people have to live in destroyed homes or in cellars," she said, clutching a large jar of pickled vegetables.

Russia's emergency situations ministry and health ministry set up a large tent camp near the hospital where officials unloaded food aid including flour, sugar and tinned meat as medical staff treated patients.

But Lavoyev, like other city residents, said he is sceptical about getting any of the food.

"Where's all the food going? I see the columns bringing it in, but no one is getting any."

He said his own family was living on the stocks of pickles they had readied for the winter.

The head of humanitarian operations in the city, Russian deputy emergency situations minister Pavel Platt, had said on Tuesday that aid would be distributed around the city.

"We are bringing rice, buckwheat, pasta, fish, sugar, tea, tinned meat and flour. We've sent in 12 tonnes of flour to the bakeries. Overall we've brought in 100 tonnes of food aid and more is coming," Platt said at the tent camp.

"We're going into cellars giving out food ... but we can't go everywhere, there is still unexploded ordnance," he said.

An AFP reporter present in Tskhinvali since Tuesday said no aid had been seen being handed out.

At the local bakery, a few civilians and dozens of South Ossetian militiamen queued up to collect freshly baked loaves. Head baker Slavik Kokoyev, 57, who also serves in the militias, said the bread was being given away.

Wearing a white apron over camouflage military fatigues, Kokoyev said: "We're producing around 6,000 loaves a day. Before it was 15,000. A lot of people have left.

"People were scared to come here before," he said, referring to the bakery. "But now it is safe."