Also Monday, SANA reported that rocket fire presumably fired by rebels hit a residential neighbourhood in the northern city of Aleppo, killing three children and wounding two other people. “Our children are starving, our bodies are trembling”, Ghaitha Assad, a 27-year-old resident, told AFP. “We have to humiliate ourselves to go to them and beg for food”. There is no water, no electricity, no heating.
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The World Food Program says it’s sending one month’s worth of food for more than 40,000 people to Madaya, and enough for 20,000 people to al-Foua and Kefraya.
Damascus-More residents in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya starved to death in recent days while waiting for the delivery of food and medical aid. “It’s cold and raining, but there is excitement because we are here with some food and blankets”.
“Look at the haunting pictures of civilians, including children – even babies – in Madaya, Syria”, Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said on Monday.
“Actually, there was no starvation in Madaya”, Bashar Ja’afari told reporters at the UN headquarters in NY, where the UN Security Council met to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
The aid convoys that arrived Monday, arranged by numerous global organisations, were allowed in as the result of an agreement between the government and rebels.
Mousa al-Maleh, the head of the local committee in Madaya, told Al Jazeera that the amount of aid delivered was less than what is needed.
Spokesman Pawel Krzysiek, who reached Madaya with the trucks, said the “first impression is really heartbreaking”. “It’s heart-breaking to see so many hungry people. What we saw in Madaya should not happen in this century”, Malik said.
The operation to organise the supplies with help from the Red Crescent got underway after Assad’s regime gave permission for the deliveries on Thursday.
All the contents of an aid convoy have now been distributed to residents of the Syrian town of Madaya, where nearly 30 people are reported to have died of starvation amid a siege by government forces, activists said Tuesday. (Reuters) Ambassador Bashar Jaafari said the reports were aimed at “demonising” the Assad regime and “torpedoing” peace talks later this month.
He said: “Actually, there was no starvation in Madaya”.
He also denied the Syrian government is using starvation as a tool of war, which is generally considered a war crime.
He said his government was committed to “cooperate fully” on aid delivery but said much of what was said about Madaya was “based on false information”. So far, 7.8 tons of medical aid, including trauma kits for wounds and medications for treating chronic and communicable diseases, have been delivered, Hoff said.
According to SANA, Syria’s state news agency, 65 trucks loaded with aid supplies entered Madaya and the other besieged towns, Foua and Kefraya.
More than 260,000 people have been killed since Syria’s war erupted in March 2011.
She said: “To relieve the suffering of these tens of thousands of people, there has to be regular access to these areas”.
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.
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The UN said it had received credible reports of people starving to death in the town and elsewhere as a result of pro-government force tactics.
