About 400 people in Madaya, a Syrian town where humanitarian aid was delivered on Monday for the first time since October, need to be urgently evacuated, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien has told reporters.
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This must be done as soon as possible “or they are in grave peril of losing their lives”, O’Brien said, adding that efforts will be made to get ambulances to Madaya today to evacuate the 400 people, of all ages, if safe passage can be assured.
Syria’s ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, said on Monday that there was “no starvation in Madaya” after the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said 28 people in the town had starved to death.
The council met to discuss the situation in Madaya where residents told AFP they had resorted to eating grass and killing cats for meat to survive.
In an interview with Reuters, Hoff said many malnourished people were too weak to leave their homes and World Health Organization needs to do a door-to-door assessment to verify the situation is as dire as doctors in the town of 42,000 people are reporting.
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.
The sight of food trucks brought starving residents to tears, a United Nations source told CNN. “It’s cold and raining, but there is excitement because we are here with some food and blankets”.
Another 13 people who tried to escape in search of food have been killed when they stepped on landmines laid by regime forces or were shot by snipers, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group.
“Offloading of aid expected to last throughout night”, Pawel Krzysiek, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a tweet.
“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”, she added.
The three towns, along with rebel-held Zabadani next to Madaya, were part of a landmark six-month deal reached in September for an end to hostilities in those areas in exchange for humanitarian assistance.
Asked if the United Nations was confident that the food wasn’t simply being intercepted and confiscated by fighters, UNHCR representative in Syria Sajjid Malik said: “The way it was handled we could see that it was a very broad community engagement… they assured us it was going to be distributed to the population”.
“I want out. There is nothing in Madaya, no water, no electricity, no fuel and no food”, said teacher Safiya Ghosn.
Mr van Bohemen also responded to claims from Syrian officials that there was no starvation in Madaya and the crisis had been fabricated by “hostile governments” and media.
Peter Wilson, Britain’s deputy United Nations ambassador, said in NY it was “good news that those convoys are getting through, although it’s little and it’s late”.
He dismissed pictures of starving people as “fabrications”.
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Ja’afari accused Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey of raising the humanitarian issue and “defaming” and “demonizing” the Syrian government in order to torpedo the Geneva talks because “they are not in favor of a political settlement”. “A one-off humanitarian visit and then a return to siege-starvation will not be acceptable”, the statement said.
