UN Chief says starvation is being used as a weapon in Syria

The World Food Program has brought a month’s supply of wheat flour for Madaya’s 39,000 inhabitants, as well as therapeutic food for children and other vital aid.

“UNICEF … can confirm that cases of severe malnutrition were found among children”, it said in a statement, after the United Nations and Red Cross had entered the town on Monday and Thursday to deliver aid for the first time since October. All were now receiving treatment.

French Ambassador Francois Delattre told AFP the meeting, to be held Friday from 2000 GMT, “will draw the world’s attention to the humanitarian tragedy that is unfolding in Madaya and in other towns in Syria”. They could barely talk or walk. “Their teeth are black, their gums are bleeding and they have lots of health problems”.

“They have basically been surviving on grass”.

She recalled that for more than four years, the humanitarian community has sounded the alarm about the impact of Syria’s conflict on ordinary men, women and children. “A lot of people were also giving their children sleeping pills, because the children could not stop crying from hunger, and their parents had nothing to feed them”. The UN health agency also had an agreement to have a vaccination campaign in Madaya and hoped to set up vaccination facilities by next week, if all the organizational requirements were met.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had recorded 27 deaths in Madaya from malnutrition and a lack of medical supplies, and 13 deaths in al-Foua and Kefraya from medical supply shortages.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that any forces using starvation as a tactic of war in Syria were guilty of a “war crime”.

Beyond Madaya, 450,000 people are living under siege throughout Syria, according to the United Nations.

France and Britain and have asked for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to press for the lifting of sieges on Syrian cities and towns where some 400,000 people are unable to get humanitarian aid, the Associated Press reports.

Fuaa and Kafraya, two government-held villages in northwest Syria, have been under siege by rebel groups for months.

RT’s Murad Gadziev, who was one of the few foreign journalists to arrive in Madaya, said that, according to the locals, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants were fighting within the city together with the opposition forces. In 2015, the United Nations was able to reach less than three per cent of besieged areas; in 2014, the figure was less than five per cent. Twenty-two (22) of the children showed signs of moderate to severe malnutrition.

“Food, water and medicine are not bargaining chips or favors that the parties to a conflict can grant or deny at will; they are basic necessities that lie at the very essence of survival and the right to life, which this council and its members have a responsibility to protect”, Kyung-wha Kang told the 15-member body. “It is, however, shared by those that conduct military activities in or from populated areas, thereby using civilians as shields and placing them in harm’s way”.

Indeed, while aid was delivered to Madaya this week, it was simultaneously sent to Foua and Kefraia, two villages in northern Idlib province that have been encircled by rebels.

“UN teams have witnessed scenes that haunt the soul”.

Syria told diplomats in NY that no one cares more about the Syrian people than President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Damascus. About 10.5 million Syrians have fled their homes – and more than 4 million of those have left the country, playing a large part in Europe’s migrant crisis.

However, Mounzer said all measures and precautions needed to be taken to ensure relief workers were safe and that the aid doesn’t fall into the hands of “terrorists”.