Siege, starvation left Syrian town in ‘grim’ state, U.N. says
BEIRUT – Siege and starvation have left the rebel-held Syrian town of Madaya in a nightmarish state not seen elsewhere in the country, a U.N. official who traveled there said Tuesday, as some 300 residents fled and desperately needed humanitarian aid arrived.
The former mountain resort, besieged since last summer by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, came to international attention in recent weeks as reports of starvation emerged and activists shared images of emaciated children and old men widely on social media.
Sajjad Malik, the U.N. refugee agency’s chief in Damascus, told journalists that the “very grim” picture was the result of a blockade of food, medicine and other supplies that left the town in a “desperate situation.”
“There is no comparison to what we saw in Madaya,” he said from Damascus by telephone to Geneva. “It is a place where you could see there are people, but there is no life … What we saw is something that was pretty horrible.”
Malik described seeing shivering, malnourished children and young adults, saying “most of them had not had bread or rice or vegetables or fruit for months.” He said a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of rice would sell there for $300, and noted one account of one person selling a motorcycle to buy 5 kilos of rice.
A day earlier, the U.N. said that about 400 people in the town’s hospital needed to be evacuated immediately for medical treatment as starvation and other factors had left them on the brink of death. Syrian authorities, rebels and aid groups have yet to respond. The U.N. goal was to obtain safe passage to evacuate the 400 later on Tuesday.
U.N. officials said it was too early to determine whether anyone had died of hunger. But the aid group Doctors Without Borders has said that 23 people died of starvation at a health center it supports in Madaya since Dec. 1, including six infants and five adults over 60.
The U.N. said some 15 municipalities across Syria are currently blockaded, with no one able to get in or out.
On Monday, convoys carrying food, medical and other supplies reached Madaya around the same time as another convoy arrived in the twin Shiite villages – called Foua and Kfarya.