United Nations demands access to Syria’s besieged towns

STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images A handout picture released by UNICEF and taken on January 14, 2016 shows a UNICEF employee measuring the arm of a malnourished child in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya.

The UN children’s agency said Friday that it witnessed the death of a teenager who died of starvation “in front of our eyes”, as well as several cases of severe malnutrition among children trapped in a besieged Syrian town near Damascus.

Although the findings may not be representative of overall nutrition conditions in Madaya, she said they provide a “real-time reflection of the situation” in a town that has become a focal point of the information war that has accompanied five years of deadly armed conflict in Syria.

The U.N. said a convoy was planned to Madaya, which is besieged by pro-government forces, and two rebel-besieged villages of Foua and Kefraya in Idlib next week and that regular access was needed.

Hanaa Singer, UNICEF’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the 16-year-old, identified as Ali, died of malnutrition on Thursday in Madaya’s clinic.

The charity has said five more people have starved to death – since a United Nations aid convoy gained access on Monday.

Brice de le Vingne, Director of Operations for MSF, said, “this is shocking; patients are still dying despite the arrival of two big global humanitarian convoys”.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the deliberate starvation of civilians a “war crime” and on Thursday urged both the Syrian government and rebels to end the sieges before the commencement of peace talks scheduled for Jan 25 in Geneva.

Local doctors and humanitarian agencies say dozens of people have died there of starvation and a lack of medical care. Besides Madaya, the nearby opposition-held town of Zabadani, as well as Fuaa and Kafraya, were also besieged.

Her staff saw “pretty horrific scenes” of malnourishment, including among women, children and the elderly, she told The Associated Press.

“The barbarity of this tactic can not be overstated”, Kang told the council.

In the United States, President Barack Obama met with his National Security Council to discuss “intensification” of Washington’s campaign against the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group in Syria and Iraq.

He said Syria’s Il-76 military transport planes had airdropped 22 metric tons of humanitarian aid to Deir Ezzor using Russian equipment.

The Syrian government said aid supplied to Madaya in October past year had been looted by terrorists and sold to civilians at inflated prices. Russian warplanes in Syria have flown their first joint combat mission with the Syrian air force, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday. Until now, the Syrian government is said to have denied 90 percent of United Nations requests to deliver assistance to besieged areas. “Some families also reported having eaten cats”, she said in a statement.