More Syrian children die as Assad's sieges intensify
By Richard Spencer, Middle East Editor, and Louisa Loveluck
3:10PM GMT 23 Jan 2016
Fresh evidence has emerged of how starving
Syrians are being forced to eat grass to survive as President Bashar al-Assad’s regime defies the UN to tighten sieges across Syria.
International aid agencies say that the regime is using humanitarian aid - which is supposed to be delivered freely under both international law and United Nations resolutions - as a bargaining chip.
Aid workers claim the crisis has now spread well beyond the town of Madaya, north west of Damascus, where photographs of emaciated children caused an international outcry earlier this month.
Omar Hakim, a doctor in Syrian capital, reported similar scenes of horror in the south-west suburb of Moadhamiya last week.
"Twelve people died last week, six of them children," he told The Sunday Telegraph.
"There are 1,500 patients here suffering chronic diseases which require treatment or medicine which is not available. Six hundred children need breast-feeding but their mothers can't feed them because they're malnourished too.
"People are eating grass, and rice if it's available. The aid which has been sent is not enough to keep people alive.”
Sieges have been used as a weapon since the start of the war, but the situation has worsened in recent weeks.
UN workers who accompanied the convoy to Madaya two weeks ago said conditions
were the worst they had encountered in the war. Even since then, residents have continued to die.
"Unicef is particularly saddened and shocked to have witnessed the death of Ali, a severely malnourished 16-year-old boy who passed away in the town's clinic in front of our eyes," a statement from the United Nations children's agency said.
The town has a population of 42,000, but the UN says that 400,000 people in Syria are living under siege, and more than four million in "hard to reach areas". Even these grim estimates, however, have come under fire as having been deliberately down-played to appease the regime.
Madaya was not originally on the "besieged" list, despite its conditions. Aid groups estimate the total number of people who are being
surrounded and deprived of aid in this way is in fact more than one million.
The UN's humanitarian plans for Syria, leaked last week, also suggested that that the UN had censored itself by removing the words "siege" and "besieged" between the original draft and the final publication.
The plan is also careful to stress that areas are besieged not just by the regime, but also the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and non-Isil rebels. Yet the vast majority - 49 of the 52 at risk - are held by non-Isil rebels and surrounded by the regime.
Care International says it is now trying to get stockpiles of aid into areas that are being attacked by the regime before final sieges are imposed.
"We have to fill warehouses so that if routes are closed, people inside have a chance to survive for as long as it takes for the international community to negotiate," said Abu Fares, a Syrian volunteer who uses local networks of contacts to take food and other supplies provided by the charity into surrounded areas of Homs province. He said 300,000 people were at risk in Homs alone.
The charity accuses the regime of deliberately exploiting the situation for military ends, and particularly to strengthen its hand in advance of peace talks due to start this week.
"Their objective is to maximise their military gains prior to these discussions," Gareth Price-Jones, its head of humanitarian policy, said.
A UN resolution passed last month, and even supported by the regime's most important backer Russia, said aid had to be delivered without conditions. But UN officials still have to negotiate with the regime before doing so.
The United Nations says that of 113 attempts to deliver aid last year, on 80 applications it received no response at all.
Ashley Proud, who covers Syrian relief for Mercy Corps, said: "We've seen a much more extreme tightening of besieged areas in the lead-up to the peace negotiations."
One of the most shocking pictures to emerge from the conflict in recent was years was of thousands of people crowding the streets to greet an aid delivery in Yarmouk, a district of Damascus which has seen fierce fighting.
Since then, though, scenes of people killing pet cats and boiling herbs to stay alive have been repeated right across the country.
Aid workers also point out that pictures of chaos and starvation in towns like Madaya serve a useful propaganda effect for the regime, in that it contrasts the suffering of rebel-held areas with the comparative normality of life in government-controlled areas.
"It's been a systematic policy to impose collective punishment," Abu Fares said. "The regime can repeat at any time what's happening in Madaya, and yet it wins legitimacy for the regime."
Ms Proud pointed out that aid in Madaya was only allowed in after a truce agreement which ensured the effective surrender of a neighbouring rebel-held town, Zabadani.
. The peace talks were due to take place on Monday/tomorrow, but have been held up by a row over who will represent the rebels.
Russia and the regime are demanding that extra groups be added to the rebel negotiating team, including Kurdish PYD, but opposition spokesmen say Damascus is playing for time and seeking further advances before agreeing to negotiate.
The regime has retaken key areas of Latakia in the north-west and Dera'a province, near the Jordanian border, in the last two weeks.
"The link between political negotiations and humanitarian aid is very dangerous," said , of Care International.
"We are seeing pictures of starving people coming out of Madaya. The world is looking at the city as if it's just a very unfortunate case but it's happening in many places across Syria."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/12117476/More-Syrian-children-die-as-Assads-sieges-intensify.html