Evacuation talks under way for besieged Syria town: Red Cross

Some 400 Syrians on the brink of death must be urgently evacuated from Madaya to receive medical treatment, the United Nations said after the first deliveries of aid in months arrived in the besieged town.

United Nations aid chief Stephen O’Brien told the 15-member council that the 400 Syrians were “in a very critical situation”, Spanish Ambassador Roman Oyarzun told reporters.

The World Health Organization on Tuesday asked the Syrian government for permission to conduct a “door-to-door” assessment of medical needs in the town, where 300 to 400 people are reportedly in need of immediate medical attention.

The UN said it had received “credible reports” of people dying from starvation and being killed or injured while trying to leave the town, lying in mountains near the Lebanese border.

According to Tasnim dispatches, food, medical items, blankets and other materials are being delivered to the towns of Madaya in rural Damascus, and Foua and Kefraya near the city of Idlib. A convoy with enough basic food to last 40,000 people a month is one of three which left Damascus after an agreement between the warring sides.

Dozens of aid trucks headed on Monday to the besieged rebel-held Syrian town of Madaya, where more than two dozen people are reported to have starved to death.

Pawel Krzysiek, who is with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Madaya, said after arriving: “The people… were coming every five minutes asking, ‘listen did you bring food, did you bring medicine?'”

“Starving civilians is an inhuman tactic used by the Assad regime and their allies”, said Matthew Rycroft, the British ambassador to the UN.

Added Sajjad Malik, a representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees who took part in the operation: “It’s cold and raining, but there is excitement because we are here with some food and blankets”.

The situation has been described as “quite horrific” by an aid agency which told one media outlet more than 250 people were suffering malnutrition.

And when a child dies, the doctor said, it’s likely his or her siblings will die soon, too.

Some Assad supporters and politicians have said the photos were faked, while others alleged the anti-government rebels controlling Madaya were withholding food from residents.

“The Syrian government has demanded our support against terrorism and we, anyway, stood alongside (President Bashar) Assad, who enjoys his people’s support”, he said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States is continuing to push for regular humanitarian access to the towns.

The town, some 25 kilometres north-west of Damascus in mountains near the Lebanese border, has been besieged by a combination of government forces and Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah fighters since July. “There are hundreds of thousands of people being deliberately besieged, deliberately starved, right now”.

“Madaya is tragically far from being unique”, said O’Brien.

The deliveries come after an outpouring of worldwide concern and condemnation over the dire conditions in Madaya, where some 42,000 people have been living under a government siege.

Local activists say residents have been reduced to eating grass and leaves in order to survive.

He dismissed pictures of starving people as “fabrications”.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Monday called on the Syrian regime to end the siege of rebel-held Madaya and said a halt to airstrikes by the regime and its Russian ally was an “absolute necessity”.