Conducted by a joint United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent operation, this was the first shipment of food to reach the city’s population since 2012. However, he said that “the approval does not mean that the aid will reach” the areas, and continued by saying “Our team in Damascus has been informed that preliminary permission has been granted and that the Syrian government has approved all nineteen areas that are besieged”.
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The UN said that the operation had been set in motion after the Syrian government authorized access to 15 of the 19 officially recognized besieged areas of the country.
However, violence was reported on Friday in the rebel-held area as crude barrel bombs have been dropped on the suburb, according to the Local Council of Daraya.
The Observatory and local council estimate that 8,000 people live in Daraya, one of the first towns in Syria to erupt in anti-government demonstrations in 2012 and one of the first to come under a government-controlled siege the same year.
The UN’s World Food Program has been conducting humanitarian airdrops over the area, with consent from Damascus.
“The supply of the very basic commodities is very challenging, so as a outcome the prices of the commodities themselves are very high whenever they are available”, he said.
But the United Nations speaks of 4 000 besieged residents, angering inhabitants who say the food delivered is not almost enough.
Toner said the fact that Assad had allowed the convoy in to the town at all was “positive, but only a partial delivery and we would call for the rest of the supplies to be delivered as as soon as possible”. A nine-truck convoy brought in medical supplies and health items, along with rice, lentils, chickpeas, beans, bulgur, oil, salt and sugar, the WFP said.
“The town’s aid bureau might have to re-divide the food to make sure everybody gets some”. Having recently marked its five-year anniversary, the fighting has cost the lives of at least 250,000 people, although the United Nations has stopped counting.
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“It was quite a feat”, Laerke said, adding that malnutrition had been reported in the area.
