The Catastrophic Humanitarian Situation in Besieged Syrian Towns
Aid convoy enters besieged Madaya
An aid convoy began on Monday 11 January, 2015, entering the besieged rebel-held Syrian town of Madaya with enough food to last 40,000 people for a month, the UN says.
Residents have been trapped there for six months by a government blockade and have received no aid since October.
The UN says it has received credible reports of people dying of starvation (see below).
Simultaneously, aid trucks entered Foah and Kefraya, two villages besieged by rebel forces in the northern province of Idlib, under a deal between the warring parties. The situation there is also said to be extremely dire, with an estimated 20,000 people trapped there since March.
A BBC Arabic correspondent who is with the convoy saw the first of the trucks entering Madaya. The BBC's Lyse Doucet in Beirut says some 20 trucks have now entered and, with darkness falling, the aid agencies will distribute food through the night.
She says the delay was because the lorries needed to synchronize with those entering Foah and Kefraya.
Lyse Doucet says that "today, Madaya is the face of Syria's suffering. Two years ago, it was Yarmouk" (which she entered with the first food convoys -GRM).
"These are moments that mobilize the world's sympathy but over the past year, only 10% of the UN's requests to deliver aid to people to in besieged and hard-to-reach areas were granted. That is where 4.5 million Syrians live."
In total more than 60 trucks operated by the UN, the ICRC, the Syrian Red Crescent and the World Food Program had left the capital Damascus for Madaya, Foah and Kefraya yesterday 11 morning.
They were carrying basic food items - including rice, vegetable oil, flour, sugar and salt - as well as water, infant formula, blankets, medicines and surgical supplies.
Marianne Gasser, head of the ICRC delegation to Syria, told the BBC after arriving in Madaya that it was clear the people there were in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
Madaya, which is about 25km (15 miles) north-west of Damascus and 11km from the border with Lebanon, been besieged since early July by government forces and their allies in Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement.
Brice de la Vigne from the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) described the situation in the town as "quite horrific".
De la Vigne, whose organization supports a health centre in Madaya, told the BBC that more than 250 people there had "acute malnutrition". He added that 10 of them needed immediate medical evacuation or would die.
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.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35278173
Comment: Several parties are using siege tactics in Syria, but Syrian and Hezbollah forces are responsible for most sieges.
Direct from the UN: UN and partners get relief convoy in to starving residents of besieged town of Madaya
A humanitarian convoy has finally reached the besieged Syrian town of Madaya with life-saving health and food supplies from the United Nations and its partners for the 42,000 desperate residents after reports of people starving to death under encirclement by pro-government forces.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria Yacoub El Hillo said today 11 January it has taken long and patient negotiations with many parties to facilitate the convoy, whose first trucks are now being unloaded to start relieving a situation that UN officials last week called “horrendous…ghastly,†noting that deliberate starvation of civilians amounts to war crimes.
At the same time trucks have left Damascus for Kafraya and Foah, two towns under siege by opposition forces, where the inhabitants are also in desperate need as the war between the government and a whole spectrum of rebel forces approaches the start of its sixth year.
The life-saving items brought by the inter-agency convoy to Madaya including health, nutrition and food supplies, blankets, shelter materials, and soap for the people. The non-government group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has said 23 people starved to death in the town in December, six of them children, and people trying to leave have been reported to have been killed.
Hillo noted that while there is much focus on Madaya, where the situation requires an immediate response, the UN and its humanitarian partners are equally concerned about the 4.5 million people living in besieged and hard-to-reach area across Syria.
“We continue to call on all parties to the conflict to facilitate sustained and unimpeded access to all people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas in Syria,†he stressed.
On the political front, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who is preparing the ground for political talks beginning in Geneva on 25 January in an effort to end the fighting, concluded a new round of regional consultations on Sunday, meeting in Tehran with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his deputy.
He updated them on preparations for the talks, and as did when he visited Saudi Arabia last week, obtained assurances that current tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia would not affect the engagement of their government in supporting the Geneva talks.
On Saturday, de Mistura also had what was described as a "useful" meeting in Damascus with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem, and will now report back to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and seek his guidance ahead of the Geneva talks.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsId=52976#.VpQZxFKN8UM
France calls for Russia to end strikes on Syria amid Madaya crisis
After a meeting with Syrian opposition representative Riad Hijab, French Foreign minister Laurent Fabius told reporters yesterday 11 January: "We discussed the absolute necessity that Syria and Russia end their military operations against civilians and in particular the ordeal in Madaya and other cities besieged by the regime."
"It shows how much the Bashar Assad regime… for moral and efficiency purposes cannot be the future of Syria and also the same time that the Russians do not undertake any inadmissible actions."
Hijab will be present at the January 25 Geneva peace talks with the government mediated by the UN. "There must be two elements [to these talks]," Fabius said. "On the one hand the immediate end of bombardments and on the other hand that the agenda of these negotiations are sufficiently precise and there is no doubt in particular over who will govern," he added.
http://bit.ly/1J09k0N
U.N. Security Council discusses starving, besieged areas of Syria
The UN Security Council on Monday Jan. 11 discussed the fate of besieged towns of Syria after new reports highlighted that tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped for months without supplies and are starving to death.
The meeting was called by New Zealand, Spain and France in response to the reports of people dying in the town of Madaya and elsewhere due to a lack of food and medical attention.
"The tactic of siege and starvation is one of the most appalling characteristics of the Syrian conflict," New Zealand's United Nations ambassador, Gerard van Bohemen, told reporters.
Trucks carrying food and medical supplies reached Madaya near the Lebanese border and began to distribute aid as part of an agreement between warring sides, the United Nations and the ICRC said on Monday.
U.S. 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."
"Look at the haunting pictures of civilians, including children, even babies, in Madaya," she told the General Assembly.
"These are just the pictures we see. There are hundreds of thousands of people being deliberately besieged, deliberately starved, right now. And these images, they remind us of World War Two."
Power was speaking at a special session of the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly on the 70th anniversary of the assembly's first meeting in London. Read her speech here: http://usun.state.gov/remarks/7087
British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said "starving civilians is an inhuman tactic used by the (President Bashar) al-Assad regime and their allies."
"All sieges must be lifted to save civilian lives and to bring Syria closer to peace," he said in a statement, adding that there were 850 infants in urgent need of milk in Madaya.
Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told reporters his government was committed to "cooperate fully" on aid delivery but said much of what was said about Madaya was "based on false information." He labeled pictures of starving people as "fabrications."
"There is no shortage of humanitarian assistance in Madaya," he said, adding that some aid has been "looted by armed terrorist groups."
Ja'afari's statement earned him an immediate rebuke from U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien, who told newspeople that reports of people starving to death in Madaya were "wholly credible." He added that some 400 people there were in dire need of medical evacuation as they could not be treated locally. He stressed they would inevitably die if not evacuated.
French Ambassador Francois Delattre said there could be "no credible political process without progress on the humanitarian front."
http://reut.rs/1J0aTf8
Statement on Humanitarian Access in Syria by Ambassador Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
U.S. Mission to the United Nations, New York City, NY, January 11, 2016
"The reports of starvation coming out of Madaya and other besieged regions of Syria are horrific. Before today's delivery, the approximately 40,000 people in Madaya had received almost no humanitarian aid since October 18. The situation is dire: at least 23 people - including six infants - have died from starvation, and thousands more are at risk. Desperate to escape these terrible conditions, some have attempted to flee, only to be killed or injured by land mines and sniper fire. The aid delivered today, while necessary, is nowhere near enough. And the UN now reports that more than 400 people in Madaya are on the brink of death and in need of immediate medical evacuation.
"The humanitarian crisis in Madaya is but one more sign of the Assad regime's brutality throughout Syria. Such suffering should not and need not continue. Time and time again, we've seen the Syrian regime promise to allow life-saving aid to reach starving people, and time and time again, the regime has prevented aid from moving. Indeed, in 2015 - in but one testament to the Syrian regime's indifference to the welfare of its own people - Damascus did not even deign to respond to more than half of UN requests to deliver assistance across conflict lines. Blocking aid in order to starve civilians is grotesque - and but one more reason why Assad's supporters should recognize that he has lost the legitimacy to govern the Syrian people.
"As we have said before, the only way to stop the violence and end Syria's conflict will be through a political solution, like the ?negotiated political transition outlined in December in UN Security Council resolution 2254. But while we work toward that goal, the Syrian regime must allow immediate and unfettered humanitarian assistance to reach all those in need, and the Member States of the United Nations must unite to pressure the Syrian government to grant that access now."
http://usun.state.gov/remarks/7090
Retired Independent Consultant, Author
8yRemarks at a UN Security Council Briefing on Humanitarian Access in Syria by Ambassador Michele J. Sison, U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations U.S. Mission to the United Nations, New York City, NY, January 15, 2016 Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you for your very sobering briefing, Assistant Secretary-General Kang. Thank you to our fellow Council members for organizing this session on short notice. At the outset, I want to commend the brave UN and humanitarian workers who are carrying out life-saving work in Syria under the deeply challenging circumstances of a conflict zone. Your work is courageous and deeply valued. Millions depend on you. We have come into this chamber today because the world has been profoundly shaken by the display of the sheer brutality of the Assad regime in Syria. The reports of starvation coming out of Madaya have truly shocked our conscience and our sense of humanity. Most disturbing is that this is not just a single instance of horror and cruelty, but rather this is part of a deliberate and systematic siege-and-starve tactic employed by the regime against civilians across Syria - another barbaric act in a conflict full of such acts. This Council has adopted one resolution after another on humanitarian access, and yet over the last year we have only seen the suffering of Syrians deepen to outrageous levels. This cannot go on. We welcome the two UN shipments to Madaya, Foah, and Kefraya this week. It is life-saving assistance, but it is not nearly enough - and it is coming far, far too late. Before Monday, the 40,000 people in Madaya, trapped by the Syrian regime and its allies - including Hezbollah - have received almost no humanitarian aid since October. So although the shipments this week are necessary, the need is so much greater. At least 32 people - including infants - have died from starvation in the last 30 days, according to the latest updates from humanitarian workers. The UN reported that more than 400 people are near death due to starvation - those are just the cases we know about, there could well be more. The only two doctors in the town - two doctors for all 40,000 people - have very limited ability to treat this sick and weakened community. Madaya's hospital has been destroyed, and the one remaining medical facility faces severe shortages of medicines, supplies, and health personnel. The facility consists of one large room where, earlier this week, humanitarian workers saw 20 weakened people suffering from severe malnutrition, sleeping on the cold, hard floor without mattresses. When UN and ICRC workers arrived on Monday in Madaya, the grateful local distribution committee insisted on providing a meal, trying their best to offer hospitality; truly generous of spirit, yet all they had to offer was hot salted water with very few grains of floating rice. Madaya has had no bread for nearly five months, and what food is available is sold at exorbitant prices: 1 kilogram of sugar costs $150, and 1 kilogram of rice costs $200. Madaya has simply been cut off from the world. Civilians who have tried to escape or to find food have been killed or injured by anti-personnel mines and sniper fire by pro-regime forces. Since the Syrian regime has cut off power and fuel for generators, the residents of this mountain town - where temperatures are now dropping often below freezing - must simply risk their lives to collect firewood to keep their children warm at night. This must change. We reiterate calls on the Syrian regime to allow immediate, regular, unconditional, and unimpeded access. The UN formally made a request to the Syrian regime three days ago to bring in mobile medical units and medical teams to Madaya to conduct nutrition assessments and to treat the most critical cases. This request was just approved today - but these units and teams must arrive immediately, with no further delays. The exhausted medical personnel in Madaya need this support urgently to stabilize and treat those who are severely malnourished. The most dire cases - the 400 people the UN identified as near death due to starvation - must be treated or evacuated to a safe location immediately. The stories of horror coming out of Syria have become so chillingly commonplace but they simply cannot make us numb. Families trying to survive on what cannot even be called soup, just hot water and boiled spices; young babies unable to feed because their mothers suffer from such serious malnutrition; frail elders wasting away to nothingness. We cannot just become immune to the stories of their plight. We, as a Council, must demand rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access to these residents of Madaya and all civilians in Syria, not merely as a matter of implementing Security Council resolutions, but as a moral imperative. As we all know, this hunger, suffering, and obstruction of humanitarian access should never - should never have happened in the first place and it is by no means limited to Madaya. The Damascus suburbs towns of Moua'dhamiyah and Daraya are also worth highlighting since they also continue to be strangled by the Syrian regime. Madaya is just one of 12 areas in Syria besieged by the regime while armed opposition groups have surrounded civilians in Foua and Kefraya and ISIL has surrounded Deir Az Zour. In addition to the 400,000 in these besieged areas, four million more Syrians are in hard-to-reach areas where it is increasingly difficult for the UN to send assistance. Denying humanitarian access to anyone, anywhere, must stop. While we welcome the UN's progress towards meeting the needs of those in Madaya, Foah, and Kefraya, one-off-deliveries are not a solution to the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the besiegement of communities. All communities should be guaranteed access to food, medicine, and basic goods. That has to be our goal. And since we only saw access deteriorate, and malnutrition and starvation increase in 2015, we all have to re-examine strategies to do better. In the last year, we saw the number of Syrians who need humanitarian relief increase to 13.5 million, which is another 1.3 million in need. The number of Syrians receiving aid in hard-to reach areas continue to dramatically decline, from 1.1 million in 2014 to 625,000 in 2015. In besieged areas, on average only three percent received humanitarian assistance, as Assistant Secretary-General Kang just noted. We must stop acting as though such suffering is simply inevitable. In the last year, the Syrian regime did not even respond to more than half of UN requests to deliver assistance across conflict lines. According to the UN, if the regime approved these outstanding requests, 1.4 million people would receive assistance. As the UN's partner, the United States intends to help in developing strategies to reverse the trends of the last year. The Syrian regime must minimize administrative procedures. We, as a Council, must effectively press the parties to implement the resolutions we adopted. In this regard, we request the UN to immediately bring to the attention of this Council any obstacles to humanitarian access so that we may take action. The International Syria Support Group, the ISSG, discussed the need to take steps to ensure expeditious humanitarian access throughout Syria, per UN Security Council resolution 2165. And the ISSG called for the UN's pending requests for humanitarian deliveries to be granted. And in UN Security Council resolution 2254, this Council called on ISSG states to use their influence immediately to these ends. As we've said before, the only way to stop the violence and end Syria's conflict is through advancing a ?negotiated political transition, as outlined in resolution 2254. But while we work toward that goal, Syrians literally cannot wait - whether for food, medicine, or clean water. It is critical that the Syrian regime, and all parties, allow immediate, unconditional, and unfettered humanitarian assistance to reach all of those in need. All UN Member States must unite in pressuring the Syrian government or any actor over which it has leverage to grant access to Madaya and to all communities across Syria. Thank you, Mr. President. http://usun.state.gov/remarks/7097
Retired Independent Consultant, Author
8yRussia Says West 'Politicizing' Humanitarian Crisis in Syria Russia dismissed a Security Council meeting Friday 15 January on the siege of Syrian towns as "unnecessary noise" that "politicizes" a humanitarian crisis and risks derailing upcoming peace talks. Russian Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov questioned the motives of Britain, France and the U.S. in calling for the meeting. He accused them of "double standards" by focusing on the suffering in Madaya, a rebel-held town besieged by Syria's government, while minimizing suffering in towns under siege by rebels. Safronkov said the insistence on holding the Security Council debate "gives the impression" that "attempts are being made to undermine the launch of the inter-Syrian dialogue scheduled for Jan. 25" in Geneva. "As the date for the launch draws closer there is all this unnecessary noise," Safronkov said. The three Western council members called for the debate to intensify the pressure on Syria's warring parties to lift sieges that have cut off 400,000 people from aid. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said both the Syrian government and some rebels are committing war crimes by deliberately starving civilians. Confirmed reports of starvation deaths in Madaya have reinforced the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in the town and other besieged areas. Trucks from the U.N. and other humanitarian organizations entered Madaya this week for the first time in months. Two other communities, the villages of Foua and Kfarya in northern Syria, besieged by Syrian Islamist rebels were also included in the aid operation. British Deputy Ambassador Peter Wilson said the Security Council should call on all parties to lift the sieges but he emphasized that the Syrian government "has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians." In a reference to Russia, Wilson said "let council members with ties to the regime use their influence, and not their air force, to address this horrific situation." Safronkov said Russia is engaging with "the relevant Syrian authorities, prompting them toward constructive cooperation with the United Nations." Addressing the council, Syrian Deputy Ambassador Mounzer Mounzer denied that his government was using starvation as a war tactic. He dismissed U.N. accusations that the Syrian government has impeding humanitarian access to civilians, saying any delays are due to the need to safeguard humanitarian workers and prevent aid deliveries from falling into the wrong hands. "The Syrian government had deployed all of its efforts and resources to provide assistance to all those who are suffering without discrimination," Mounzer said. http://abcn.ws/1RVrFxo Comment: Perhaps Ambassador Safronkov could ask the 400,000 Syrians cut off from aid and who are often starving if they believe that the Security Council addressing the issue is "unnecessary noise." It is the responsibility of Russia, which is backing Syrian government forces with air strikes, to impress upon Assad the need to observe UNSC resolution 2258 of 22 December 2015 under which the Security Council renewed its call for allowing passage of humanitarian aid into Syria. Safronkov himself cast albeit reluctantly the Russian vote on this unanimously-adopted resolution. Western countries have however no influence on Islamist groups that use siege tactics, notably the Al-Nusrah front. Sieges are military-political decisions. The West is not "politicizing" an issue which is humanitarian-political. The text of UNSC resolution 2258 and a summary of the debate by the UN can be found here: http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc12179.doc.htm
Tuck Magazine / Bureau Chief South Asia at Eurasiadiary
8ysad
Retired Independent Consultant, Author
8yThe Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic investigates war crimes in Madaya Residents of the besieged Syrian town of Madaya have told U.N. investigators how the weakest in their midst, deprived of food and medicines in violation of international law, are suffering starvation and death, the top U.N. war crimes investigator told Reuters today 12 January. The U.N. commission of inquiry documenting war crimes in Syria has been in direct contact with residents inside Madaya, the commission's chairman Paulo Pinheiro said in an emailed reply to Reuters questions. "They have provided detailed information on shortages of food, water, qualified physicians, and medicine. This has led to acute malnutrition and deaths among vulnerable groups in the town." he said in the email sent from his native Brazil. The U.N. inquiry established by the Human Rights Council and composed of independent experts, has long denounced use of starvation by both sides in the Syrian conflict as a weapon of war, and has a confidential list of suspected war criminals and units from all sides which is kept in a U.N. safe in Geneva. "Siege tactics, by their nature, target the civilian population by subjecting them to starvation, denial of basic essential services and medicines," Pinheiro said on Tuesday. "Such methods of warfare are prohibited under international humanitarian law and violate core human rights obligations with regard to the rights to adequate food, health and the right to life, not to mention the special duty of care owed to the well-being of children." [Islamist] rebel forces are also besieging the government-held villages of Foua and Kafraya in Idlib province, where U.N. supplies were also delivered on Monday, Pinheiro noted. Islamic State fighters are besieging government-held areas of Deir al-Zor, he added. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKCN0UP0VM20160112
Retired Independent Consultant, Author
8yRead also: The Soufan Group: "Starvation as Leverage", http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrief-starvation-as-leverage/