Aid convoys head toward 3 besieged Syria villages

The United Nations has reported people dying of starvation.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have said that at least 28 people, including six babies under one year of age, have died from hunger-related causes in Madaya.

Government forces have been able to airlift some supplies into Fuaa and Kafraya, but rebel forces are not able to do the same for Madaya.

Al-Manar, a Lebanese television station affiliated with Hezbollah, whose fighters aid regime forces, said an agreement had been reached for the United Nations to take aid to Madaya, and simultaneously to Fuaa and Kafraya.

In another attack in Idlib province, the Syria Civil Defence said at least three people were killed and four others were injured in air strikes that targeted a school and a fire department in Ariha.

Aid convoys carrying food, medicine and blankets prepared on Monday to enter the besieged Syrian town of Madaya, where more than two dozen people have reportedly starved to death, an aid official said. It is surrounded by land mines, entrapping its residents and severely restricting food and healthcare supplies.

Food aid and other supplies were allowed to reach civilians inside the towns.

Laurent Fabius said images coming out of Madaya, where aid agencies have warned of widespread starvation, showed President Bashar al-Assad could not remain in power.

Humanitarian groups could begin delivering much-needed aid in three besieged Syrian towns as early as Sunday, spokesmen said on Friday. Hezbollah has, in response to accusations it was starving people in Madaya, denied there had been any deaths in the town, and accused rebel leaders of preventing people from leaving.

The aid agency Medecins Sans Frontiers said 200 patients in its hospital could become critical if aid does not arrive within the next few days. The release was also noted on the station’s social media pages.

A spokesperson for the US State Department, John Kirby, said the “regime’s record of broken promises on humanitarian access must stop” and urged Russian Federation to use its influence to ensure the pledge is not a one-off.

Gasser says there are “more than 400,000 people living in besieged areas across Syria”.

The UN’s World Food Programme has been planning to deliver the first aid shipment in months, with two other Syrian villages – Kefraya and Foah – also set to receive aid tomorrow.