Syria's besieged Daraya receives food aid for first time since 2012
Daraya had a pre-war population of around 80,000 people but that has dropped by almost 90 percent
A file photo of medical aid reaching Daraya in May 2015 (AFP)
Thursday 9 June 2016
A food aid convoy on Thursday entered the Syrian town of Daraya, the first delivery since the start of the siege there imposed by the Syrian government in 2012, a Red Crescent official told AFP.
"Nine lorries are currently being unloaded in Daraya. They are carrying food aid, including dry goods and flour, non-food aid as well as medical aid," said Tamam Mehrez, operations director of the Syrian Red Crescent.
Last month, aid agencies delivered relief supplies to the besieged Syrian rebel-held town, but food was not among the materials delivered.
Five trucks organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the UN and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent were to deliver baby milk and medical and school supplies to the town, which is within a few miles of aid warehouses in the capital of Damascus.
"We see this as a breakthrough, but not a success," ICRC spokesman Pawel Krzysiek told Middle East Eye from a buffer zone near Daraya in May, waiting for the convoy to arrive.
Krzysiek said the first food aid convoy to arrive in Daraya since November 2012 should be seen as a "confidence-building opportunity".
"We are urging everyone who is responsible on the ground to allow this needed aid to Dararya," he said.
Earlier on Thursday, the United Nations said the Syrian government has given approval for humanitarian convoys to reach all of the country's 19 besieged areas by the end of the month - while warning that "approval ... does not mean delivery".
"We were informed by our team in Damascus that basically there has been a permission, an approval ... by the government of Syria for all 19 besieged areas," the UN envoy to the war-racked country, Staffan de Mistura, told reporters.
He stressed that Syria had given such approvals in the past before ultimately blocking convoys from distributing life-saving supplies.
He made the comments after the weekly meeting of the Syria humanitarian taskforce, co-chaired by the United States and Russia, which has for months been trying to boost aid supplies to millions of Syrians in need.
That taskforce has faced pressure, including from France and Britain, to start air-dropping aid into besieged areas, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's military continuing to block road convoys.
De Mistura insisted there had been no "backtracking" on air drops and that they "are still an option."
Daraya had a pre-war population of around 80,000 people but that has dropped by almost 90 percent, with remaining residents suffering from severe shortages and malnutrition.
In April, 47 women in the Syrian town sent an open letter saying they were on the verge of witnessing their children and relatives starve to death if aid did not reach them soon.
Since November 2012, when the government's siege on Daraya started, residents have survived off food smuggled in from a nearby town and whatever crops they could grow. Two years ago, the government cut off the town's water supplies.
This January, the crisis in the town quickly escalated when the road to the next town was cut off and frequent government bombing left Daraya's drinking water, siphoned from shallow wells, and farmland contaminated with toxic chemicals, a resident told MEE in April.
