What aid teams found there were “scenes that haunt the soul”, according to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Advertisement
Residents who said they have received permission from the Syrian government to leave the besieged town wait with their belongings after an aid convoy entered Madaya, Syria.
The images of starving people in Madaya represent a new low in the Syrian civil war, which has already exhibited “shocking depths of inhumanity”, Ban said.
“While we express our shock over the situation in Madaya, let us not forget that across Syria, there are 14 other ‘Madayas, ‘” said Ms. Singer, stressing that these are locations where different parties to the conflict have been using siege as a tactic of war, depriving children and innocent civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies and services.
“All sides including Syrian government has the primary responsibility to protest Syrians and are committing this and other atrocious acts prohibited under International Humanitarian law”.
Safronkov accused critics of Syria’s government of “double standards” by emphasizing the crisis in Madaya while minimizing the suffering in towns besieged by rebels.
The Secretary-General said there can be no denying their suffering: “Many hundreds of people are in such a dire state that they require immediate medical attention, including through possible evacuation”, he stressed.
On Monday, a first convoy reached Madaya, where Syrian forces have laid siege for the past six months, and truckloads of aid entered two other towns blockaded by rebel groups.
Singer, in the statement, said that at the makeshift hospital UNICEF visited in the town, there were only two doctors and two health professionals working under overwhelming conditions.
“The meeting is due in a bit more than 10 days, but before then de Mistura will present in NY what he has achieved”, said a senior Western diplomat. “You could see many were malnourished, starving”, the World Health Organization’s representative in Syria, Elizabeth Hoff, said.
For months, the Syrian town has been besieged by parties to the conflict – a war soon entering its sixth year.
France’s United Nations mission said the meeting will take place Friday afternoon.
Syria’s Ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Ja’afari confirmed the report, saying aid delivered to Madaya had been looted by terrorist groups and sold to civilians. “I would say they are being held hostage, but it is even worse”.
Singer said the people the agency met in Madaya were “exhausted and extremely frail”.
The Syrian Observatory said it had recorded 27 deaths in Madaya from malnutrition and lack of medical supplies, and at least 13 deaths in al-Foua and Kefraya due to lack of medical supplies.
Dozens of additional trucks were waiting on the edges of the town after arriving from Damascus as part of the convoy carrying flour and other foodstuffs, medical supplies and a range of basic supplies.
The Syrian government and the United Nations have championed localised ceasefire deals as a way to end fighting across Syria, where more than 260,000 people have been killed since 2011.
Advertisement
Underscoring the complications on that issue, Russian Federation condemned as terrorists two rebel groups that are represented in a newly-formed opposition council tasked with overseeing the negotiations.
