Aid convoys reach Madaya and three other besieged towns

Aid convoys have made new deliveries of fuel, food and medicine to four besieged Syrian towns including Madaya, humanitarian officials said on Tuesday.

The United Nations, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Syria's Red Crescent (SARC) said in a joint statement that simultaneous deliveries had reached the towns on Monday.

They said fuel had entered Fuaa and Kafraya, which are under rebel siege, and Madaya, which is under a government siege.

Food and medicine was also delivered to the rebel-held town of Zabadani, which was not included in similar aid deliveries to Fuaa, Kafraya and Madaya earlier this month.

The statement said however that a joint delegation of aid officials was not able to enter Fuaa and Kafraya to carry out assessments of humanitarian needs.

"The joint team had to postpone the mission to Fuaa and Kafraya upon receipt of reports from armed groups that more time was needed to finalise security arrangements in areas under their control," the statement said.

All four towns were part of an agreement last year to end fighting and allow the entry of humanitarian aid.

At least five people have starved to death in the Syrian town of Madaya in the past five days, even after a large aid convoy was allowed to enter the town, an international NGO has said.

According to medics supported by the international medical humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the besieged town, by Friday afternoon at least 35 people had been confirmed to have died from starvation since December.

A further 18 people - ranging from a seven-month-old girl to a 70-year-old woman - are believed to be in critical condition and need to be evacuated immediately, MSF said on Sunday.

Statistics vary widely, but sieges and starvation tactics have both been widely employed during the almost five-year-long bloody conflict in which more than 260,000 people have been killed and millions displaced.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) puts the current number of Syrians besieged at 393,700 while Siege Watch, a monitoring network, says the figure stands at more than a million. MSF puts the figure at close to two million.

However, the UN has been accused of downplaying the humanitarian emergency in the months running-up to the crisis.

A Middle East Eye investigation, published on Friday, found that OCHA staff allowed officials in Damascus to edit a key report on the issue, without seeking authorisation from the main regional offices in Turkey and Jordan.