New convoy enters besieged town with much needed aid
MADAYA: A convoy carrying food and other desperately needed aid entered Syria’s besieged Madaya on Thursday, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that using starvation as a weapon was a war crime.
At the United Nations in New York, Western powers called for the UN Security Council to meet yesterday in order to expedite deliveries of life-saving supplies to Madaya and two other Syrian towns.
White trucks emblazoned with the logo of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent entered Madaya — where the UN says suffering is the worst seen in Syria’s nearly fiveyear war — late on Thursday afternoon, a reporter said.
The town’s 40,000 residents have endured a crippling siege by pro-government forces that has drawn sharp condemnation from the international community.
More than two dozen people have reportedly starved to death since December, and Mr Ban warned that any side using starvation as a weapon in the conflict would be committing a “war crime”.
“All sides — including the Syrian government which has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians — are committing this and other atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law,” Mr Ban told reporters.
A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said 44 aid trucks carrying food and other supplies entered Madaya, adding that a separate convoy of 17 trucks to the northwestern rebel-encircled towns of Fuaa and Kafraya reached their destinations.
“The priority is wheat flour and washing materials,” Pawel Krzysiek said.
“All trucks finally reach #Madaya #Fuaa #Kafraya. Our teams now talk to people to better understand the situation,” the ICRC’s Syria account tweeted.
Thursday’s delivery to Madaya follows one on Monday that was the first humanitarian assistance received by the town in nearly four months.
In a statement, the ICRC’s top official in Syria, Marianne Gasser, said Madaya’s suffering was “heartbreaking”.
“People are desperate. Food is in extremely short supply. It is the elderly, women and children who are suffering the most, especially from severe malnourishment,” Ms Gasser said. “This cannot go on,” added Ms Gasser. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said a third delivery to the towns would take place “in the following days”.
“We do not want to see this as a oneoff,” the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Yacoub el-Hillo, told reporters.
“Ultimately the real solution to this predicament, to the plight of the people besieged in these towns, is for the siege to be lifted.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said only one of its nutritionists was able to enter the town on Thursday.
“We are going to evaluate the situation, to treat people there and examine the severity of their condition and to see what the next step is,” WHO spokeswoman Rana Sidani said.
The UN has called for nearly 400 Madaya residents who need immediate medical care to be evacuated.
Madaya, the nearby opposition-held town of Zabadani, as well as Fuaa and Kafraya, are part of a landmark UN-brokered truce deal between rebels and regime fighters reached in September.