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UNICEF witnessed death of teenager in besieged Syria town Correction: Syria story
(about 2 hours later)
BEIRUT — The U.N. children’s agency said Friday that it has witnessed cases of severe malnutrition among children in a besieged Syrian town and the death of a teenager “in front of our eyes.” BEIRUT — In a story Jan. 14 about humanitarian aid entering Madaya, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Care International was among aid organizations entering the Syrian town. CARE International is not entering Madaya, but is working with Syrian partners in other besieged communities in Syria.
Hanaa Singer, UNICEF representative in Syria, said in a statement that the 16-year-old identified as Ali passed away Thursday in the town’s clinic of severe malnutrition. A corrected version of the story is below:
Trucks from the U.N. and other humanitarian organizations entered Madaya Thursday for the second time in a week after reports of starvation deaths. The town has been under siege for months by government forces. UN chief says deliberate starvation in Syria is a war crime
Two other communities, Foua and Kfarya, in northern Syria besieged by Syrian rebels were also included in the aid operation Thursday. UN chief says deliberate starvation in Syria is a war crime as new aid reaches besieged communities
The death of Ali, a severely malnourished 16-year-old boy, as international aid workers were inside Madaya, reinforces the enormous scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in Madaya and other besieged areas. By ZEINA KARAM
The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting Friday at the request of Western countries trying to press Syria’s warring parties to lift sieges on towns where hundreds of thousands have been cut off from aid and many are starving. Associated Press
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who called the deliberate starvation of civilians a “war crime,” also stepped up the pressure, calling Thursday for both the Syrian government and rebels to end the sieges before peace talks scheduled for Jan. 25 in Geneva as a confidence-building measure. BEIRUT — Trucks carrying humanitarian aid on Thursday entered a rebel-held town besieged by government troops for the second time this week, following reports of starvation, grave deprivation and illness among trapped residents which the U.N. chief described as a “war crime.”
Ban said the United Nations and its humanitarian partners are able to deliver food to only 1 percent of the 400,000 people under siege in Syria, down from an already dismal 5 percent just over a year ago. The operation, in which aid also entered two villages in northern Syria besieged by the rebels, is part of an effort to alleviate civilian suffering in cut-off areas of the war-torn country.
Juliette Touma, an Amman-based UNICEF representative, said the agency’s staff who spent close to seven hours in Madaya Thursday are “terribly shocked.” A convoy of 44 trucks from the U.N. World Food Program, International Committee for the Red Cross and the Syrian Red Crescent had headed in the morning to the rebel-held town of Madaya from the Syrian capital, Damascus. A similar aid convoy of 17 trucks drove to the villages of Foua and Kfarya, in the northern province of Idlib, which have been besieged by the Syrian rebels.
“In general, they saw pretty horrific scenes of women, children, and elderly, and malnourishment,” she told The Associated Press. “It was safe to say the scene was very bleak.” In the evening, six trucks entered Madaya, while three trucks entered Foua and Kfarya simultaneously, according to the U.N.-supported agreement.
Still, she said there was a sense of relief to finally be able to get into these areas. “It is important right now to maintain this humanitarian access ... There are 14 other Madayas,” she said. Madaya, a former mountain resort near the Lebanon border, has been under siege for months by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad. The trucks carry wheat, flour, cleaning materials and some medical supplies.
Singer, in the statement, said that at the makeshift hospital UNICEF visited in the town, there were only two doctors and two health professionals working under overwhelming conditions. The Madaya convoy also included a nutritionist and health teams to assess the humanitarian situation, said Tarek Wheibi, spokesperson for the ICRC in Beirut.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that those responsible for the deliberate starvation of Madaya’s townspeople must face justice.
“The town has been the victim of deliberate starvation. Let me be clear: the use of food as a weapon of war is a war crime. All sides, including the Syrian Government, which has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians — are committing atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law,” he said in a speech before the U.N. General Assembly.
“Combatants have showed complete and utter disregard for Madaya’s people,” Ban added.
The U.N. has said that 400 people in Madaya are in need of immediate medical evacuation, but Ban asked what about those who would be left behind.
“They can eat today but they fear another stretch of months in destitution if the combatants renew the siege,” the U.N. chief warned.
As of Thursday, there were no reports of any evacuations from the area.
Among aid organizations entering Madaya is SOS Children’s Villages, an international organization dedicated to the care of orphaned, abandoned and other vulnerable children.
Abeer Pamuk, communications adviser for the group who traveled to Madaya on Thursday, said immediately on arrival in the town, they saw “an overwhelming amount of people, all were extremely skinny and very pale.”
Reports of starvation have drawn international attention to Madaya, where an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 people are thought to be trapped without food, electricity, and other basic supplies.
Officials who travelled to the town with the first aid convoy on Monday reported “heartbreaking” and nightmarish scenes they said were the worst they had seen in Syria.
In a statement UNICEF and WHO said Thursday that their teams met distressed and hungry children - some of them severely malnourished, along with adults in a similar condition during their visit Monday.
“The town’s population of 40,000 is being served by only two doctors, with a limited capacity to save the lives of civilians. Health and medical services including immunization are collapsing,” the statement said.
A similar humanitarian crisis was reported in Foua and Kfraya. The U.N. says around 15 municipalities are under siege in Syria, in contravention of international law.
The U.N. says 4.5 million Syrians are living in besieged or hard-to-reach areas and desperately need humanitarian aid, with civilians prevented from leaving and aid workers blocked from bringing in food, medicine, fuel and other supplies.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has called on all parties to end the sieges on Madaya, Foua, and Kfarya.
“We think there is a window of opportunity to make a significant step forward to lift all the sieges,” said Dominik Stillhart, Director of Operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Speaking to U.N. correspondents in New York, he said flour was being delivered to the three villages today and that the convoys would be returning on Sunday with fuel.
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Associated Press writer Philip Issa in Beirut contributed to this story. Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer and Alexandra Olson at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.