Hundreds at risk of death in besieged Madaya, UN urges immediate evacuation

“The tactic of siege and starvation is one of the most appalling characteristics of the Syrian conflict”, New Zealand’s United Nations ambassador, Gerard van Bohemen, told reporters. Images said to be of emaciated residents have appeared widely on social media. Rebel fighters inspected the aid vehicles in the freezing rain before they were allowed to enter.

World Health Organization simultaneously delivered 3.9 tonnes each to Foua and Kafraya, two villages in Idlib province surrounded by rebels fighting the Syrian government.

After waiting for four hours at a government checkpoint, the first trucks of the convoy moved into Madaya, about 25km north-west of Damascus, shortly after 5.30pm local time (11.30pm in Malaysia), said Red Cross spokesperson Pawel Krzysiek, who accompanied the aid.

“We have seen with our own eyes severely malnourished children.

This is a very positive development”, said Marianne Gasser, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation to Syria. The aid operation, which is being facilitated by the United Nations, was agreed last week. But aid had not reached Madaya in almost three months, and residents and rights groups have raised the alarm about deteriorating conditions.

He dismissed pictures of starving people as “fabrications”.

“We thank God and the good people of the world who worked on sending us the supplies, but we do not want them to stop work on lifting the siege”, Abu Hussein said. “This is what this institution was created to prevent”.

The UN has urged the Syrian government to get the most vulnerable out of the starving town. Peace talks are scheduled to start in two weeks.

Meanwhile, suspected Russian air raids Monday in Aleppo province killed at least 12 Syrian schoolchildren, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict.

A few town residents were given permission to leave and could be seen with belongings awaiting evacuation.

“Around 400 people have been identified who must be evacuated immediately”.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Sunday that a total of 28 people – including six children less than one year old – had died of starvation in Madaya since 1 December.

Tearful women and children, bundled up against the cold, waited in the dark for the trucks bringing vital supplies after six months encircled by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

The town of Madaya is under siege by pro-Syrian government forces.

Blockades have been a common feature of the civil war. (Reuters) Ambassador Bashar Jaafari said the reports were aimed at “demonising” the Assad regime and “torpedoing” peace talks later this month.

“The Turkish authorities hindered the delivery of humanitarian assistance through their borders to other restive area”.

It will take several days to distribute the aid in Madaya, near Damascus, and the Shiite villages of Foua and Kfarya in northern Syria, and the supplies are probably enough to last for a month, aid agencies said.

Shortly after aid trucks finally reached Madaya, the situation turned out to be even more dire than expected.

Map of Syria locating town of Madaya, which has been besieged by the regime.

“I can tell you that we have had confirmation of extreme malnourishment of a number of people across all ages”, he said.

A United Nations commission of inquiry has said siege warfare has been used “in a ruthlessly coordinated and planned manner” in Syria, with the aim of “forcing a population, collectively, to surrender or suffer starvation”.