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| In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian citizens gather at the scene of a car bomb exploded in the residential al-Tadhamon neighborhood in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013. Syrian state media say a car bomb has exploded in Damascus, killing and wounding a dozen people. Damascus has been hit by a wave of explosions over the past leaving scores of people dead. |
BEIRUT (AP)
-- Syrian opposition groups and international relief organizations are
warning of the risk of mass starvation across the country, especially in
the besieged Damascus suburbs where a gas attack killed hundreds last
month.
With the world's attention focused on
the regime's chemical weapons, activists said six people - including an
18-month girl - have died for lack of food in one of the stricken
suburbs in recent weeks.
Save the Children
said in an appeal Monday that more than 4 million Syrians, more than
half of them children, do not have enough to eat. Food shortages have
been compounded by an explosion in prices.
"The
world has stood and watched as the children of Syria have been shot,
shelled and traumatized by the horror of war," said Roger Hearn, Save
the Children's regional director for the Middle East. "The conflict has
already left thousands of children dead, and is now threatening their
means of staying alive."
Thousands of people
are believed trapped in suburbs east and west of the capital that have
been held for months by rebels fighting to topple President Bashar
Assad. Regime troops are besieging the areas, and residents say food is
increasingly had to find. Rebels say they are trying to break the
blockade.
The suburbs were the site of the
Aug. 21 attack that a U.N. report found included the use of the nerve
gas sarin. They were home to more than 2 million people before the war,
but it is unclear how many are there now.
In
some hard-hit areas such as the western suburb of Moadamiyeh, people are
running out of food and are mostly relying on lentils, olives and dried
figs, according to residents and activists.
"We
have no food, no milk and no medicine," said a woman from Moadamiyeh,
who identified herself by her nickname Um Lujain for fear of government
reprisals. "We are surviving on one meal a day,"
Um
Lujain said her 18-month-old daughter has lost half her weight and
spends most of her days sleeping.
The woman said her daughter's diet is
based on the liquid she makes by boiling lentils.
"There
has been no children formula or bread for about a year," the woman
said. She added that sometimes rebels find expired boxes of powdered
milk in abandoned shops or pharmacies, and people still give it to their
children for lack of food.
According to the
Moadamiyeh Media Center, six people have died of starvation over the
past 20 days: two women and four children ages 18 months to 7 years. It
added that 15 other children are in intensive care in clinics, suffering
from malnutrition.
On Monday, the opposition
Syrian National Coalition accused government forces of tightening their
months-long siege. "Assad's forces are starving people to death in those
areas," the coalition claimed.
"Famine looms in the horizon."
Rana
Obeid, the 18-month-old girl, was the latest to die on Monday. An
amateur video showed her lying on a bed, her ribs visible and her
stomach bloated.
The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting on the events depicted.
Mahmoud
Abu Ali, an activist in Moadamiyeh, said the suburb has been under
siege for 307 days. He added that most of the cows, sheep and goats died
as a result of shelling or lack of feed, and people cannot plant their
land because of daily bombardment.
"People
wake up in the morning and there is no food to have breakfast. At noon
there is no food for people to have lunch," Abu Ali said.
Khaled
Iriqsousi, head of Syrian Arab Red Crescent, told The Associated Press
that the organization has not entered suburbs of Damascus for five
months because of the fighting.
Iriqsousi said
by telephone that one of the most serious problems is that children are
not getting vaccinated.
"This will affect generations," he warned.
The
United States and Russia brokered an agreement for Syria to give up its
chemical weapons, but U.N. diplomats are at odds over details of a
Security Council resolution spelling out how it should be done and the
possible consequences if Syria doesn't comply.
In
a speech at the U.N. on Tuesday, President Barack Obama challenged the
Security Council to hold Syria accountable if it fails to live up to its
pledges.
"If we cannot agree even on this,"
Obama said, "then it will show that the United Nations is incapable of
enforcing the most basic of international laws."
Ertharin
Cousin, head of the U.N.'s World Food Program, demanded that a
potential cease-fire for the benefit of the experts who will secure
Syria's chemical weapons include access for aid workers.
WFP is feeding 3 million people inside Syria.
