UN official says starvation exists in besieged Syrian towns
UN and relief agency workers saw starving people in two besieged Syrian areas where aid deliveries were made on January 11, a senior UN official said.
An aid convoy entered the town of Madaya, besieged by government forces, where thousands had been trapped for months without supplies and people had been reported to have died of starvation.
Yacoub El Hillo, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Syria who was in Madaya overseeing the operation to distribute food to over 40,000 people, said he had also received reports, which could not be confirmed, that at least 40 people had died of starvation.
"We have seen with our own eyes severely malnourished children. I am sure there also malnourished older people and it is true they are malnourished, and so there is starvation," he told Reuters by phone from Madaya.
He said aid workers had also seen cases of starvation in al Foua and Kefraya.
They are two mostly Shi'ite villages, besieged by rebels, with about 20,000 residents. They also received deliveries from Monday's convoy. Aid delivery both to Madaya and to Foua and Kefraya in the northwestern province of Idlib, 300 km (200 miles) away, involved 65 trucks loaded with medical supplies and food.
Another large-scale operation to deliver wheat, flour, medical supplies and non-food items to those areas will be completed on Thursday, El Hillo said.
Dozens are said to have died from starvation or lack of medical care in rebel-held Madaya and activists have said some inhabitants have been reduced to eating leaves. Images said to be of emaciated residents have appeared widely on social media.
The government of President Bashar al-Assad has denied blockading the town. It accuses insurgents of hoarding food and blames them for the plight of civilians.