United Nations official: Madaya Residents Need Medical Treatment

“It’s heart-breaking to see so many hungry people”.

“Whatever we had in the cars, we gave to them”, Malik said.

The United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent were in talks to evacuate around 400 people from the starvation-struck town of Madaya.

Both New Zealand and Spain’s permanent representatives on the Security Council called for the closed consultations on the humanitarian crisis at a meeting of the United Nations in NY on Tuesday.

“But it must not be just a one-off distribution”.

“It’s not progress on the political front or progress on the humanitarian front”.

More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebels opposed to his rule battle each other – as well as jihadist militants from Islamic State. He labeled pictures of starving people as “fabrications”.

Syria’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja’afari, said his government is cooperating with the aid delivery, but denied there is starvation in Madaya.

But until a deal to evacuate residents is reached, Hoff said the World Health Organization was working to bring mobile medical units into Madaya to treat the most severe cases.

The trucks arrived first in Madaya, where the situation is acute, Al Jazeera reported. People said they resorted to extreme measures to survive.

“There are no more cats or dogs alive in the town”, Rahman said.

“We had to make do by eating grass”.

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

Madaya has attracted particular attention in recent days because of reports of deaths and images in social media of severely malnourished residents. “I won’t say day by day, I will say on an hour basis”.

Brice de la Vigne, from the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), said it was a “horrific” situation in Madaya, adding that nearly 250 people in the town were suffering from “acute malnutrition”.

A group of residents gathered at the main entrance to Madaya, hoping to receive desperately needed food and medicine. In interviews, they accused fighters inside of hoarding humanitarian assistance that entered the town in October and selling them to residents at exorbitant prices. “We have no food – even bread”.

Aid workers continued to unload the trucks in the dark, using flashlights and cellphone lights, since the town had no electricity.

Up to 4.5 million people live in hard-to-reach areas, including almost 400,000 people in 15 besieged locations who do not have access to life-saving aid. 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.

A group of eight major global aid groups, including CARE worldwide, Oxfam, and Save the Children, welcomed the aid convoy but warned that a one-time delivery would not save starving people.

“All sieges must be lifted to save civilian lives and to bring Syria closer to peace”, he said in a statement.

“It’s important to remember that Madaya represents only 10 per cent of those who are under siege and 1 per cent of those who need aid in Syria.”

“France solemnly calls for the immediate and effective lifting of sieges of all those cities for an unlimited humanitarian access and a stop to the indiscriminate attacks against civilians”.

A convoy of 44 trucks waited to enter Madaya.

The city has been divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east since shortly after fighting there began in mid-2012.