Vital aid arrives of thousand of besieged Syrians

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S.is pressing “all parties” on humanitarian access to Madaya.

He said there were “credible reports” of people starving to death during the months-long siege by pro-regime forces.

Following an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council in NY O’Brien warned that the civilians are at risk of death unless immediately evacuated.

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. It was the first aid to reach the area since October.

Residents told United Nations staff that a main source of food in recent weeks has been a soup made of grass boiled with the few available spices.

It could take a number of days to distribute the aid in Madaya, and to the Shiite villages of Foua and Kfarya in the northern part of the country.

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.

He stressed the vital need to sustain aid deliveries through the coming months. “We want to make sure the siege is lifted and this is not a one-off”. More supplies are expected on Thursday.

“We are suffering from anemia and many other diseases”, an unnamed resident who managed to leave Madaya told BBC News, before adding: “We have no food, even bread”.

Government forces have been able to airdrop some supplies into Fuaa and Kafraya, which are home to around 20,000 people, but rebel forces are not able to do the same for Madaya.

“I am really alarmed”, she told Reuters from Damascus. The fighting has forced more than 4 million people to flee the country and has displaced another 6.6 million within Syria.

“It’s heartbreaking to see so many hungry people”, said Sajjad Malik, the UNHCR representative in Syria. They were skinny, tired, severely distressed. There was no smile on anybody’s face.

In Madaya, which has an estimated population of double the size, 44 lorries arrived with 7,800 food parcels including rice and lentils and corresponding levels of other supplies. “Our children cry all night, we are unable to find anything to feed them”.

World Health Organization brought 7.8 tonnes of medicines into Madaya, including trauma kits for wounds and medicines for treating both chronic and communicable diseases, including antibiotics and nutritional therapeutic supplies for children.

The trucks were also carrying water, baby milk and medication.

Government forces are besieging various locations in the eastern Ghouta area, outside Damascus, as well as the capital’s western suburb of Darayya and the nearby mountain towns of Zabadani and Madaya.

The United Nations has asked the Syrian government and armed groups controlling access the town to allow the 400 Syrians to be transported out of Madaya, he said.

US Ambassador Samantha Power also had strong words about Madaya, slamming the “grotesque starve-or-surrender tactics the Syrian regime is using right now against its own people”.

Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N.’s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, said nearly 42,000 people in Madaya are at risk of further hunger and starvation.

“Some are smiling and waving at us but many are just simply too weak, with a very bleak expression, too exhausted”.

He dismissed pictures of starving people as “fabrications”.