UAE- Unprecedented level of suffering in Madaya: paper
Date
1/13/2016 2:16:55 AM
(MENAFN- Emirates News Agency (WAM))
ABU DHABI 13th January 2016 (WAM) -- A UAE newspaper has said that it is good that a UN humanitarian convoy has finally reached the besieged Syrian town of Madaya with life-saving health and food supplies but what is also a matter of huge concern is the condition of about 4.5 million people living in hard-to-reach areas across Syria including nearly 400000 in 15 besieged locations without access to the aid that they desperately need.
"The 42000 residents of Madaya have been facing desperate times and more than two dozen people have reportedly starved to death crippled by a six-month government siege that has made even bread and water hard to find" said The Gulf Today in an editorial on Wednesday.
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees representative Sajjad Malik said in a text message that there were crowds of hungry kids around in the isolated town as the first four trucks of the 49-truck convoy unloaded in the dark to help relieve a situation that UN officials last week called "horrendous ghastly."
Food has been so scarce that people repeatedly mentioned that a kilo of rice would cost US$300 according to Malik. One family had to "sell a motorbike to get five kilos of rice."
Residents told UN staff that a main source of food in recent weeks has been a soup made of grass boiled with the few available spices. With no access to electricity people in Madaya had tried to stay warm by burning cardboard.
Deliberate starvation of civilians amounts to war crimes under the international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Top UN officials say they have received credible reports of people dying from starvation and being killed or injured while trying to leave the area which last received UN humanitarian aid in October.
Highlighting the gravity of the situation a World Health Organisation official said "People gathered in the marketplace. You could see many were malnourished starving. They were skinny tired severely distressed. There was no smile on anybody's face. It is not what you see when you arrive with a convoy. The children I talked to said they had no strength to play."
Many malnourished people were too weak to leave their homes. It is sad to note that the level of suffering in Madaya has no precedent in Syria's war. Ordinary citizens should be protected against the woes of armed conflicts.
"All parties involved in the conflict should facilitate unimpeded access to people in besieged areas in Syria. The international community should extend every form of assistance to the victims in such blockaded cities" concluded the Sharjah-based daily.
WAM/Esraa/Moran