Starving civilians as an act of warfare violates international law, says the Canadian government. But for months the Syrian regime done just that in the town of Madaya.
The town sits just 25 kilometres to the north of capital city Damascus, but government forces and allied Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, 11 kilometres to the east, have cut off access to its population of 42,000, leaving residents with little to no food for the past six months.
The Syrian government relented Thursday after images emerged of emaciated children and adults, some of whom have resorted to eating leaves, dirt and even pets.
READ MORE: Syria to allow aid into town where starving people resort to eating leaves, pets
Humanitarian organizations will now be allowed to into Madaya in the coming days, the government said.
The World Food Programme (WFP) hasn’t been allowed into the town since Oct. 17, when the UN agency brought 3,900 food rations — enough to feed 19,000 people for a month.
“Since then, no more food assistance or humanitarian supplies made it to these areas as was planned,” WFP spokesperson Bettina Luescher told Reuters.
Doctors Without Borders (also known as Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF) said 23 people died of starvation in December, including and five people over the age of 60.
The UN could not verify MSF’s figures.
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Brice de le Vingne, MSF’s director of operations, told Global News in a Skype interview it’s “rare” for a situation to be so dire that adults died of starvation.
He described Madaya as an “open-air prison,” with some areas surrounded by landmines and snipers.
READ MORE: Feds extend timeline to match Syria relief donations. Here’s how you can help.
But according to the United Nations, Madaya represents just a fraction of the 400,000 people in 15 besieged communities in Syria who lack access to food and medicine. An additional 4.5 million people, including 2 million children, are in hard-to-reach areas.
The WFP says it needs to raise $25 million a week in order to meet the needs of Syrians affected by the nearly five-year-old civil war. That includes more than 4 million people who have fled to Turkey, Egypt and Jordan as refugees.
For several months last summer, amid dire financial straits, the agency cut the amount of food assistance it could provide to 1.3 million refugees — meaning they have to live off just 50 cents a day in food vouchers.
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