Starvation ‘as a weapon’ is a war crime - UN chief ‎

With United Nations humanitarian teams witnessing scenes in Syria that “haunt the soul,” the UN chief  said on Thursday the situation is “utterly unconscionable,” and warned that the use of starvation as a weapon during conflict is a war crime.  “Perhaps nothing more urgently reflects the need to act than the harrowing scenes from Madaya,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Ban told reporters at a press conference in New York following remarks to the UN General Assembly highlighting his 2016 priorities.

For months, the Syrian town has been besieged by parties to the conflict – a war soon entering its sixth year. UN relief teams and their partners have only recently been granted access by the Government to deliver much needed food and medical aid to thousands of people trapped inside besieged towns like Madaya.  “Shocking depths of inhumanity” was how Ban described the situation there.  Relief staff who have entered Madaya reported seeing “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.”

The Secretary-General said there can be no denying their suffering: “Many hundreds of people are in such a dire state that they require immediate medical attention, including through possible evacuation,” he stressed. “We are working to get medical teams and mobile clinics on the ground right away. I want to make a special plea for those in besieged areas of Syria. I would say they are being held hostage – but it is even worse. Hostages get fed.”  He noted that almost 400,000 people are besieged in Syria – roughly half in areas controlled by the IS, 180,000 in areas controlled by the Syrian Government and its allies, and some 12,000 in areas controlled by opposition armed groups.  (Source: UN)