‘Starve or surrender’: UN war crimes investigators gather testimony from besieged Syrian town

[Sally]

What a way to have to live, and there are .
those in other towns who need help too.

‘Starve or surrender’: UN war crimes investigators gather testimony from besieged Syrian town

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 13 January, 2016, 10:24am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 13 January, 2016, 10:27am​

Reuters in Beirut and Geneva​

​

• 

Residents of the besieged town of Madaya, northwest of Damascus, speak to reporters. Aid convoys reached Madaya and two other besieged villages on Monday. Photo: AP
Residents of a besieged Syrian town have told UN investigators how the weakest in their midst, deprived of food and medicines in violation of international law, are suffering starvation and death, the top UN war crimes investigator said on Tuesday.
An aid convoy on Monday brought the first food and medical relief for three months to the western town of Madaya, where 40,000 people are trapped by encircling government forces.

Aid vehicles wait on the outskirts of besieged rebel-held Syrian town of Madaya on MOnday. Photo: AFP​

But Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the UN commission of inquiry documenting war crimes in Syria, said his team remained “gravely concerned” about the humanitarian situation there.
“As part of our investigations, the Commission has been in direct contact with residents currently living inside Madaya,” he said in an emailed reply to Reuters questions.
Continue reading at:
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, Nimbus Sans L, sans-serif]‘Starve or surrender’: UN war crimes investigators gather testimony from besieged Syrian town[/FONT]​

 

[JustAnotherNut]

I seen another article about this that said the people have resorted to eating their pets to help stave off starvation. Other areas are affected too, but this town Madaya is on a border right in the middle of the war. This town has been under siege because of its location and the people are suffering for it. So very heart wrenching and sad

Starvation grips Madaya, Syria under siege by Bashar Assad forces residents reportedly eat leaves, dogs and cats

 

[aris2chat]

I seen another article about this that said the people have resorted to eating their pets to help stave off starvation. Other areas are affected too, but this town Madaya is on a border right in the middle of the war. This town has been under siege because of its location and the people are suffering for it. So very heart wrenching and sad

Starvation grips Madaya, Syria under siege by Bashar Assad forces residents reportedly eat leaves, dogs and cats

Not just Madaya, but other places around Syria in the last four years have resorted to eating donkeys, lions, rats and even cannibalism of the dead or child on the verge of dying.

War is hell, this one particularly so

 

[aris2chat]

Syria has had a number of kuru cases over the last couple of years due to cannibalism.
The video of fighter eating syrian soldier's heart was viral for quite awhile. Syria soldiers used to be trained to dip bread in the blood or those who were executed as a psychological tool to over power an enemy. I remember seeing them back in the 70's doing that. Same reason a palestinian lapped at the blood of Jordanian minister killed in Cairo decades ago.
Now any animal or bug is food for the starving. It's been a tragedy for the last three years from the palestinian camps to the rural areas.

Even as aid reaches Madaya the food must be introduced very slowly to those who have been starving and in the worst health.

 

[waltky]

Teenager dies while UNICEF looks on...

UN Agency: Starving Syrian Teen Died 'in Front of Our Eyes'
JAN. 15, 2016 — The U.N. children's agency said Friday that it witnessed the death of a teenager who died of starvation "in front of our eyes," as well as several cases of severe malnutrition among children trapped in a besieged Syrian town near Damascus.

Hanaa Singer, UNICEF's representative in Syria, said in a statement that the 16-year-old, identified as Ali, died of malnutrition on Thursday in a clinic in the town of Madaya. Trucks from the U.N. and other humanitarian organizations entered Madaya on Thursday for the second time in a week after reports of starvation deaths. The town has been under siege for months by government forces. Two other communities, the villages of Foua and Kfarya in northern Syria, besieged by Syrian rebels were also included in the aid operation. The death of the teenager as international aid workers were inside Madaya reinforced the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in the town and other besieged areas.

The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting Friday at the request of Western countries trying to press Syria's warring parties to lift sieges on towns where hundreds of thousands have been cut off from aid and many are starving. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who called the deliberate starvation of civilians a "war crime," also stepped up the pressure, calling Thursday for both the Syrian government and rebels to end the sieges before the commencement of peace talks scheduled for Jan. 25 in Geneva. Ban said the United Nations and its humanitarian partners are able to deliver food to only 1 percent of the 400,000 people under siege in Syria, down from 5 percent just over a year ago.

Juliette Touma, an Amman-based UNICEF representative, said the agency's staff who spent close to seven hours in Madaya Thursday are "terribly shocked." Her staff saw "pretty horrific scenes" of malnourishment, including among women, children and the elderly, she told The Associated Press. She added, however, that many felt relief at finally arriving at these hard-to-reach areas. "It is important right now to maintain this humanitarian access ... There are 14 other Madayas," she said. Singer, in the statement, said that at the makeshift hospital UNICEF visited in the town, there were only two doctors and two health professionals working under overwhelming conditions.

MORE

 

[JustAnotherNut]

Teenager dies while UNICEF looks on...

UN Agency: Starving Syrian Teen Died 'in Front of Our Eyes'
JAN. 15, 2016 — The U.N. children's agency said Friday that it witnessed the death of a teenager who died of starvation "in front of our eyes," as well as several cases of severe malnutrition among children trapped in a besieged Syrian town near Damascus.

Hanaa Singer, UNICEF's representative in Syria, said in a statement that the 16-year-old, identified as Ali, died of malnutrition on Thursday in a clinic in the town of Madaya. Trucks from the U.N. and other humanitarian organizations entered Madaya on Thursday for the second time in a week after reports of starvation deaths. The town has been under siege for months by government forces. Two other communities, the villages of Foua and Kfarya in northern Syria, besieged by Syrian rebels were also included in the aid operation. The death of the teenager as international aid workers were inside Madaya reinforced the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in the town and other besieged areas.

The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting Friday at the request of Western countries trying to press Syria's warring parties to lift sieges on towns where hundreds of thousands have been cut off from aid and many are starving. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who called the deliberate starvation of civilians a "war crime," also stepped up the pressure, calling Thursday for both the Syrian government and rebels to end the sieges before the commencement of peace talks scheduled for Jan. 25 in Geneva. Ban said the United Nations and its humanitarian partners are able to deliver food to only 1 percent of the 400,000 people under siege in Syria, down from 5 percent just over a year ago.

Juliette Touma, an Amman-based UNICEF representative, said the agency's staff who spent close to seven hours in Madaya Thursday are "terribly shocked." Her staff saw "pretty horrific scenes" of malnourishment, including among women, children and the elderly, she told The Associated Press. She added, however, that many felt relief at finally arriving at these hard-to-reach areas. "It is important right now to maintain this humanitarian access ... There are 14 other Madayas," she said. Singer, in the statement, said that at the makeshift hospital UNICEF visited in the town, there were only two doctors and two health professionals working under overwhelming conditions.

MORE

Unfortunately when your body has been starved for so long, there is a 'point of no return'. It is possible that even if that teen had received help, at that point, they were already too far gone. When in such dire condition about the only thing their body could handle would have been IV drip and that would take too long to make much difference.
What I don't understand is why UN doesn't DO something to force the warring governments to release their holds on these cities so the civilians atleast stand a chance of survival.

 

[waltky]

Starvation as a weapon is a war crime...

UN chief warns Syria against using starvation as weapon
Thursday 14th January, 2016 - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday slammed Syria's warring parties for using starvation as a weapon of war, even as a second wave of aid convoys entered the besieged Syrian cities of Madaya, al-Fouaa and Kefraya on Thursday evening.

Speaking after briefing the UN General Assembly on his 2016 priorities, Ban said harrowing images of starving civilians in the besieged town of Madaya reflected a new low in a war that had already reached "shocking depths of inhumanity." "Let me be clear: the use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime," Ban told reporters. "I would say they are being held hostage, but it is even worse. Hostages get fed." "All sides - including the Syrian government, which has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians - are committing atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law," Ban said.

He said UN teams in Madaya had seen "scenes that haunt the soul." "The elderly and children, men and women, who were little more than skin and bones: gaunt, severely malnourished, so weak they could barely walk, and utterly desperate for the slightest morsel," Ban said. A convoy of 44 trucks from the UN World Food Program, International Committee for the Red Cross and the Syrian Red Crescent headed to the rebel-held town of Madaya from the Syrian capital, Damascus. An aid convoy of 17 trucks drove to the villages of Foua and Kfarya, in the northern province of Idlib, which have been besieged by the Syrian rebels.

In the evening, six trucks entered Madaya, while three trucks entered Foua and Kfarya simultaneously, according to the UN-supported agreement. Pawel Krzysiek, spokesman for International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that all the trucks in the convoys had entered the blockaded cities, and begun offloading their cargo. "Three Syrian Arab Red Crescent, ICRC and U.N. cars entered at 1500 local time" into Madaya, ICRC Director of Operations Dominik Stillhart told reporters at the United Nations.

He said the trucks were carrying mainly wheat flour and some hygienic items to the government-blockaded town. A nutritionist also was accompanying the convoy to better assess the levels of malnutrition. The town of 42,000 received its last aid delivery in mid-October. "According to ICRC team that entered Madaya, the people were very happy, even crying, when they realized that wheat flour is on the way," he said.

Stillhart said a convoy of 17 trucks with the same materials was simultaneously heading for the rebel-held towns of Foua and Kefraya. He said eight of the 17 vehicles had already been cleared at checkpoints there. The aid agencies plan to deliver fuel this Sunday to the three towns. France, Britain and the United States have called for an emergency meeting of the Security Council to press demands for an end to sieges ahead of peace talks planned for January 25 in Geneva.

UN chief warns Syria against using starvation as weapon

 

[JustAnotherNut]

It really stinks how innocent people are used as pawns during war, I can only hope & pray they 'get theirs' in the end

 

[waltky]

possum thinks dat's a ferocious kitty...

... ya should sic him onna jihadis...

... prob'ly make `em run an' hide.

 

[JustAnotherNut]

 

[irosie91]

Starvation siege have been a tool of war for jihadists since the inception of
islam

 

[JustAnotherNut]

Yes and other regimes too unfortunately

 

[irosie91]

Yes and other regimes too unfortunately

some others too. sometimes. That someone wants to call it a 'war-crime' ----
is not going to stop it