GENEVA - Twenty-three people have died of starvation in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya since December 1, Doctors Without Borders said Friday, as the United Nations prepared an aid delivery to the area.
The UN said there were 40,000 people - half of them children - who needed immediate lifesaving assistance in Madaya, where access has been restricted by pro-regime forces.
Damascus on Thursday gave permission for UN agencies to send relief to the town, following reports of starvation deaths among civilians, many of whom have been displaced from the neighbouring rebel stronghold of Zabadani.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym (MSF), said that of the 23 people who died of starvation, six were less than a year old, and five were above 60. The deaths occurred at the local MSF-supported health centre, the charity said.
Another 13 people who tried to escape in search of food have been killed when they stepped on landmines laid by regime forces or were shot by snipers, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group.
“This is a clear example of the consequences of using siege as a military strategy,” MSF’s operations director Brice de le Vingne said in a statement.
Medics had been forced to feed children with medical syrups as the only available source of sugar and energy, he said, describing Madaya as “effectively an open air prison” for nearly half of its residents. “There is no way in or out, leaving the people to die.”
MSF welcomed the decision from Damascus to allow food supplies, but stressed that “an immediate life-saving delivery of medicine across the siege line should also be a priority.”
In Geneva, UN agencies said the aid convoy would head to Madaya in the coming days, although the specifics were still being finalised.
“The situation is ghastly,” said UN rights office spokesman Rupert Colville, indicating that details of the casualties and the extent of the suffering in Madaya were difficult to verify given the limited access. Despite numerous UN requests, Madaya last received humanitarian assistance in October.
Suspected US-led coalition air strikes have killed 11 civilians, mostly children, in a militant-held village in northern Syria, a monitor said Friday.
“Eight children and three women were killed in strikes by the international coalition on Hazima, a village north of Raqa city” on Thursday, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Hazima is held by the Islamic State militant group, but a Kurdish-Arab rebel alliance has been fighting to capture it since late December.
That alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces, works closely with the US-led coalition and calls in aerial raids. The Britain-based Observatory has an extensive network of sources inside Syria.
The coalition, Russia and the Syrian air force are all carrying out air raids in the country, but the Observatory differentiates between strikes based on the type of aircraft flown and the munitions used.
The monitor said on December 23 that coalition air raids had killed a total of 299 civilians, including 81 children, and about 3,700 IS members.
The coalition has been conducting strikes in Syria since September 2014, but has rarely acknowledged civilian deaths in its campaign there and in neighbouring Iraq.
In November, it said four civilians, possibly including a child, had “likely” been killed in a strike in Iraq in March.
And a year earlier, it acknowledged it killed two children in a strike in Syria.
Late Thursday, the Syrian Democratic Forces said in a statement it was engaged in “violent clashes” with IS in Raqa province, a bastion of the militant group in Syria.
The militants were fighting to retake Ain Issa, a town lying at a strategic crossroads that Kurdish and Arab rebel groups captured last year.
More than 260,000 people have been killed since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011.