Helpless families starving in Syrian towns under siege

LONDON — Thousands of Syrian families are starving to death as Bashar Assad’s regime imposes a siege on two mountain towns, despite a UN-brokered ceasefire designed to allow in aid.

Doctors in Madaya and Zabadani, less than 40 kilometres from Assad’s presidential palace, recorded 31 cases of death by starvation last month after regime and Hezbollah troops sealed the towns’ exits and mined the surrounding area.

In Madaya, 40,000 civilians have been reduced to eating from garbage cans.

The mother of a two-year-old child broke down in tears as she described the fight to keep her child alive.

“There is nothing. Nothing. She’s so thin I see her muscles straining through her skin when she cries, and I cannot help. I am her mother and I cannot help,” she said.

The United Nations said Thursday that Assad’s regime had agreed to allow aid into three besieged towns, including Madaya.

But deliveries were not expected to begin before the weekend.

One resident, Abdullah, said he was surviving on strawberry leaves and had not eaten a full meal in three months.

“We’ve had many wars in the Middle East, yes, too many wars. But we’ve never had starvation,” he said.

At least 10 people have been killed trying to escape. Another eight have lost their legs or feet.

Abdullah said: “We are like zombies, like dead people. We are just waiting for our funeral.”