Tag Archives: Syria

UN confirms severe malnutrition in Madaya, 32 deaths in one month

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. Children’s Fund UNICEF on Friday confirmed cases of severe malnutrition among children in the besieged western Syrian town of Madaya, where local relief workers reported 32 deaths of starvation in the past month.

A mobile clinic and medical team of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent was on its way to Madaya after the government approved an urgent request, and a vaccination campaign is planned next week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

Two convoys of aid supplies were delivered this week to the town of 42,000 under a months-long blockade. The United Nations said another convoy was planned to Madaya, sealed off by pro-government forces, and rebel-besieged villages of al-Foua and Kefraya in Idlib next week, and that regular access was needed.

“UNICEF … can confirm that cases of severe malnutrition were found among children,” it said in a statement, after the United Nations and Red Cross had entered the town on Monday and Thursday to deliver aid for the first time since October.

UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac told a news briefing in Geneva that UNICEF and WHO staff were able to screen 25 children under five and 22 of them showed signs of moderate to severe malnutrition. All were now receiving treatment.A further 10 children aged from 6 to 18 were examined and six showed signs of severe malnutrition, he said.

UNICEF staff also witnessed the death of a severely malnourished 16-year-old boy in Madaya, while a 17-year-old boy in “life-threatening condition” and a pregnant women with obstructed labor need to be evacuated, Boulierac said.

Abeer Pamuk of the SOS Children’s Villages charity said of the children she saw in Madaya: “They all looked pale and skinny. They could barely talk or walk. Their teeth are black, their gums are bleeding, and they have lots of health problems with their skin, hair, nails, teeth.

“They have basically been surviving on grass. Some families also reported having eaten cats,” she said in a statement. “A lot of people were also giving their children sleeping pills, because the children could not stop crying from hunger, and their parents had nothing to feed them.”

She said her agency was working to bring unaccompanied and separated children from Madaya to care centers in quieter areas just outside the capital Damascus.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people in critical condition were evacuated to a hospital in the city of Latakia, on Syria’s government-controlled Mediterranean coast, from Kefraya and al-Foua on Friday.

DYING OF STARVATION

World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Bettina Luescher said that the local relief committee in Madaya had provided figures on the extent of starvation, but it could not verify them.

“Our nutritionist…was saying that it is clear that the nutritional situation is very bad, the adults look very emaciated. According to a member of the relief committee, 32 people have died of starvation in the last 30-day period.”

Dozens of deaths from starvation have been reported by monitoring groups, local doctors, and aid agencies from Madaya.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday Syria’s warring parties, particularly the government, were committing “atrocious acts” and he condemned the use of starvation as a weapon of war in the nearly five-year-old conflict.

“It can also be a crime against humanity. But it would very much depend on the circumstances, and the threshold of proof is often much more difficult for a crime against humanity (than for a war crime),” U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a briefing in Geneva on Friday.

The United Nations says there are some 450,000 people trapped in around 15 siege locations across Syria, including in areas controlled by the government, Islamic State militants and other insurgent groups.

(Reporting by John Davison and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Stephanie Nebehay and Mariam Karouny; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

More aid reaches trapped Syrians, doubts cast on peace talks

NEAR MADAYA, Syria/BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – A second batch of aid reached a besieged Syrian town and two trapped villages on Thursday and the United Nations accused rival factions of committing war crimes by causing civilians to starve to death.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said aid trucks had entered the town of Madaya near the border with Lebanon, and the villages of Kefraya and al-Foua in Idlib province in the northwest. Syrian state media said six trucks had gone into Madaya.

For months, tens of thousands have been blockaded by government troops in Madaya and surrounded by rebel forces in the two villages.

“According to the ICRC team that entered Madaya, the people were very happy, even crying when they realized that wheat flour is on the way,” Dominik Stillhart, International Committee of the Red Cross director of operations, said in New York.

Aid officials hoped to bring in more supplies, with fuel deliveries set for Sunday, according to Stillhart.

“We hope … this effort will continue,” said Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Syria, who accompanied the convoy.

A senior U.N. human rights official said the use of starvation as a weapon was a war crime.

“Starving civilians is a war crime under international humanitarian law and of course any such act deserves to be condemned, whether it’s in Madaya or Idlib,” said U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid bin Ra’ad.

“Should there be prosecutions? Of course. At the very least there should be accountability for these crimes.”

“ATROCIOUS ACTS”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Syria’s warring parties, particularly the government, were committing “atrocious acts” and “unconscionable abuses” against civilians.

“Let me be clear: the use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime,” Ban told reporters.

The siege of Madaya, where people have reportedly died of starvation, has become a focal issue for Syrian opposition groups who want all such blockades lifted before they enter negotiations with the government planned for Jan. 25.

A prominent member of the political opposition to President Bashar al-Assad told Reuters that date was unrealistic, reiterating opposition demands for the lifting of sieges, a ceasefire and the release of detainees before negotiations.

“I personally do not think Jan. 25 is a realistic date for when it will be possible to remove all obstacles facing the negotiations,” George Sabra told Reuters.

A total of 45 trucks carrying food and medical supplies were due to be delivered to Madaya, and 18 to al-Foua and Kefraya on Thursday, aid officials said.

The Syrian Observatory said it had recorded 27 deaths in Madaya from malnutrition and lack of medical supplies, and at least 13 deaths in al-Foua and Kefraya due to lack of medical supplies.

The population of Madaya is estimated at 40,000, while about 20,000 live in al-Foua and Kefraya.

“The scenes we witnessed in Madaya were truly heartbreaking,” said Marianne Gasser, the most senior official with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Syria.

“The conditions are some of the worst that I have witnessed in my five years in the country. This cannot go on,” she said.

PEACE TALKS

The talks planned for Jan. 25 in Geneva are part of a peace process endorsed by the U.N. Security Council last month in a rare display of international agreement on Syria, where the war has killed 250,000 people.

U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said after meeting representatives of the United States, Russia and other powers on Wednesday that Jan. 25 was still the intended date.

Russia said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would meet in Zurich on Wednesday, five days before the talks date.

But even with the backing of the United States and Russia, which support opposite sides in the conflict, the peace process faces formidable obstacles.

“The meeting is due in a bit more than 10 days, but before then de Mistura will present in New York what he has achieved,” said a senior Western diplomat.

“But he still has to define how to press ahead with this mechanism which to me is not looking good because all sides are not agreed on the parameters.”

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Jan. 25 remained the plan “but it is human beings who are negotiating on both sides” and changes regarding the date could still arise.

Fighting is raging between government forces backed by the Russian air force and Iranian forces on one hand, and rebels including groups that have received military support from states including Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Rebel groups that back the idea of a political settlement have rejected any negotiations before goodwill measures from Damascus including a ceasefire.

Sabra, the opposition politician, said: “There are still towns under siege. There are still Russian attacks on villages, schools and hospitals. There is no sign of goodwill.”

There are about 15 siege locations in Syria, where 450,000 people are trapped, the United Nations says.

The Syrian government has said it is ready to take part in the talks, but wants to see who is on the opposition negotiating team and a list of armed groups that will be classified as terrorists as part of the peace process.

Underscoring the complications on that issue, Russia condemned as terrorists two rebel groups that are represented in a newly-formed opposition council tasked with overseeing the negotiations.

“We do not see Ahrar al-Sham or Jaysh al-Islam as part of the opposition delegation because they are terrorist organizations,” the RIA news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov as saying.

(Reporting by Kinda Makieh near Madaya, Tom Perry, Mariam Karouny and Lisa Barrington in Beirut, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Jack Stubbs and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, John Irish in Paris, Tom Finn in Doha, Francois Murphy in Vienna and Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Giles Elgood)

U.N. war crimes investigators gathering testimony from starving Syrian town

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – Residents of a besieged Syrian town have told U.N. investigators how the weakest in their midst, deprived of food and medicines in violation of international law, are suffering starvation and death, the top U.N. war crimes investigator told Reuters 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.

But Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the U.N. 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.

“They have provided detailed information on shortages of food, water, qualified physicians, and medicine. This has led to acute malnutrition and deaths among vulnerable groups in the town,” he said in the email sent from his native Brazil.

The U.N. inquiry, composed of independent experts, has long denounced use of starvation by both sides in the Syrian conflict as a weapon of war, and has a confidential list of suspected war criminals and units from all sides which is kept in a U.N. safe in Geneva.

“Siege tactics, by their nature, target the civilian population by subjecting them to starvation, denial of basic essential services and medicines,” Pinheiro said on Tuesday.

“Such methods of warfare are prohibited under international humanitarian law and violate core human rights obligations with regard to the rights to adequate food, health and the right to life, not to mention the special duty of care owed to the well-being of children.”

Rebel forces are also besieging the government-held villages of Foua and Kafraya in Idlib province, where U.N. supplies were also delivered on Monday, Pinheiro noted. Islamic State fighters are besieging government-held areas of Deir al-Zor, he added.

Aid workers who reached Madaya spoke of “heartbreaking” conditions being endured by emaciated and starving residents, with hundreds in need of specialized medical help.

“It’s really heartbreaking to see the situation of the people,” said Pawel Krzysiek of the International Committee of the Red Cross. “A while ago I was just approached by a little girl and her first question was did you bring food … we are really hungry.”

The World Health Organization said it had asked the Syrian government to allow it to send mobile clinics and medical teams to Madaya to assess the extent of malnutrition and evacuate the worst cases.

A local doctor said 300 to 400 people needed special medical care, according to Elizabeth Hoff, the WHO representative in Damascus who went into Madaya with the convoy.

“I am really alarmed,” Hoff told Reuters by telephone from Damascus, where she is based.

“People gathered in the market place. You could see many were malnourished, starving. They were skinny, tired, severely distressed. There was no smile on anybody’s face. It is not what you see when you arrive with a convoy. The children I talked to said they had no strength to play.”

FOOD WEAPON CONDEMNED

Western diplomats have also condemned the use of food as a weapon of war, with the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, accusing the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of “grotesque starve-or-surrender tactics”.

Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Matthew Rycroft, said “wilfully impeding relief supply and access can constitute a violation of international humanitarian law”.

Legal experts said that could be construed as either a war crime or a crime against humanity, or both.

However, there appears little immediate prospect of such a case being brought before the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, since Syria is not a member and any referral to the court by the U.N. Security Council would have to overcome Russian reluctance.

The difficulties in getting aid into Madaya and other besieged places could also set back efforts to hold new peace talks on the five-year-old war in Syria, scheduled to take place under U.N. auspices in Geneva on Jan. 25.

A U.N. road map for the talks calls on the parties to allow aid agencies unhindered access throughout Syria, particularly in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

An opposition grouping has told the United Nations that this must happen before the talks can begin, lending weight to suggestions that the humanitarian situation could make Jan. 25 a hard target to hit.

Negotiations to get into Madaya and the other two villages near Idlib were lengthy and difficult. There are presently about 15 siege locations in Syria, where 450,000 people are trapped, the United Nations says.

The main opposition coordinator, Riad Hijab, said the United States had backtracked over the departure of President Bashar al-Assad as part of any settlement and this meant the opposition would face hard choices on whether to attend the talks.

The WHO intends to return to Madaya on Thursday as part of a U.N. convoy with more medical and food supplies, Hoff said.

ICRC spokeswoman Dibeh Fakhr also said its next distribution is planned for Thursday. The aid consists of blankets and medicine as well as food.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Additional reporting by Tom Miles, Lisa Barrington, Kinda Makieh and Lou Charbonneau; Writing by Giles Elgood, editing by Peter Millership and David Stamp)

Syrian bomber suspected as blast kills 10 in Istanbul tourist hub

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A suicide bomber thought to have crossed recently from Syria killed at least 10 people, most of them German tourists, in Istanbul’s historic heart on Tuesday, in an attack Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed on Islamic State.

All of those killed in Sultanahmet square, near the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia – major tourist sites in the center of one of the world’s most visited cities – were foreigners, Davutoglu said. A senior Turkish official said nine were German, while Peru’s foreign ministry said a Peruvian man also died.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the bomber was believed to have recently entered Turkey from Syria but was not on Turkey’s watch list of suspected militants. He said earlier that the bomber had been identified from body parts at the scene and was thought to be a Syrian born in 1988.

Davutoglu said he had spoken by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to offer condolences and vowed Turkey’s fight against Islamic State, at home and as part of the U.S.-led coalition, would continue.

“Until we wipe out Daesh, Turkey will continue its fight at home and with coalition forces,” he said in comments broadcast live on television, using an Arabic name for Islamic State. He vowed to hunt down and punish those linked to the bomber.

Merkel similarly vowed no respite in the fight against international terrorism, telling a news conference in Berlin: “The terrorists are the enemies of all free people … of all humanity, be it in Syria, Turkey, France or Germany.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Islamist, leftist and Kurdish militants, who are battling Ankara in southeast Turkey, have all carried out attacks in the past.

Several bodies lay on the ground in the square, also known as the Hippodrome of Constantinople, in the immediate aftermath of the blast. It was not densely packed at the time of the explosion, according to a police officer working there, but small groups of tourists had been wandering around.

“This incident has once again shown that as a nation we should act as one heart, one body in the fight against terror. Turkey’s determined and principled stance in the fight against terrorism will continue to the end,” President Tayyip Erdogan told a lunch for Turkish ambassadors in Ankara.

Norway’s foreign ministry said one Norwegian man was injured and was being treated in hospital.

The White House condemned the “heinous attack” and pledged solidarity with NATO ally Turkey against terrorism. U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon said he hoped those responsible for “this despicable crime” were swiftly brought to justice.

Turkey, a candidate for accession to the European Union, is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State fighters who have seized territory in neighboring Syria and Iraq, some of it directly abutting Turkey.

“UNIMAGINABLE” SCENE

The dull thud of Tuesday’s blast was heard in districts of Istanbul several kilometers away, residents said. Television footage showed a police car which appeared to have been overturned by the force of the blast.

“We heard a loud sound and I looked at the sky to see if it was raining because I thought it was thunder but the sky was clear,” said Kuwaiti tourist Farah Zamani, 24, who was shopping at one of the covered bazaars with her father and sister.

Tourist sites including the Hagia Sophia and nearby Basilica Cistern were closed on the governor’s orders, officials said.

“They attacked Sultanahmet to grab attention because this is what the world thinks of when it thinks of Turkey,” said Kursat Yilmaz, who has operated tours for 25 years from an office by the square.

“We’re not surprised this happened here, this has always been a possible target,” he said.

Ambulances ferried away the wounded as police cordoned off streets. The sound of the call to prayer rang out from the Blue Mosque as forensic police officers worked at the scene.

“It was unimaginable,” the police officer who had been working on the square said, describing an amateur video he had seen of the immediate aftermath, with six or seven bodies lying on the ground and other people seriously wounded.

Just over a year ago, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a police station for tourists off the same square, killing one officer. That attack was initially claimed by a far-left group, the DHKP-C, but officials later said it had been carried out by a woman with suspected Islamist militant links.

TURKEY A TARGET

Turkey has become a target for Islamic State, with two bombings last year blamed on the radical Sunni Muslim group, in the town of Suruc near the Syrian border and in the capital Ankara, the latter killing more than 100 people.

Violence has also escalated in the mainly Kurdish southeast since a two-year ceasefire collapsed in July between the state and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has been fighting for three decades for Kurdish autonomy.

The PKK has however generally avoided attacking civilian targets in urban centers outside the southeast in recent years.

Turkey also sees a threat from the PYD and YPG, Kurdish groups in Syria which are fighting Islamic State with U.S. backing, but which Ankara says have close links to the PKK.

“For us, there is no difference between the PKK, PYD, YPG, DHKP-C … or whatever their abbreviation may be. One terrorist organization is no different than the other,” Erdogan said, vowing that Turkey’s military campaign against Kurdish militants in the southeast would continue.

Davutoglu’s office imposed a broadcasting ban on the blast, invoking a law which allows for such steps when there is the potential for serious harm to national security or public order.

The attack raised fears of further damage to Turkey’s vital tourism industry, already hit by a diplomatic row with Moscow which has seen Russian tour operators cancel trips.

But Yilmaz, the tour operator, said he had sold a package to a tourist from Colombia just an hour after the blast.

“The reality is the world has grown accustomed to terrorism. It’s unfortunate, and I wish it weren’t true, but terrorism now happens everywhere,” he said.

“The agenda changes quickly in this age. If tourism is affected by this, it will be temporary. These things pass, but the Hagia Sophia and the Sultanahmet mosque are eternal.”

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun and Ece Toksabay in Ankara, Humeyra Pamuk, Daren Butler and Melih Aslan in Istanbul, Madeline Chambers in Berlin and Joachim Dagenborg in Oslo; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by David Stamp and Gareth Jones)

Syrian opposition casts doubt on peace talks after Russian bombing

PARIS (Reuters) – Syria’s opposition co-ordinator Riad Hijab accused Russia of killing dozens of children after a bombing raid on Monday and said such action meant the opposition could not negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Earlier the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that at least 12 Syrian school children had been killed when suspected Russian warplanes hit a classroom in the rebel-held town of Injara in Aleppo province.

Hijab, speaking after talks with French President Francois Hollande in Paris, put the death toll at 35 children and said the Russian strikes had hit three schools in total.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which denies any targeting of civilians in the conflict.

“We want to negotiate, but to do that the conditions have to be there,” Hijab told reporters. “We cannot negotiate with the regime when there are foreign forces bombing the Syrian people.”

Hijab is a former prime minister under Assad who defected to the opposition in 2012. He was chosen in December as coordinator of the opposition negotiating body to lead future Syria talks.

Peace talks are scheduled to be held between the government and opposition on Jan. 25 under the auspices of the United Nations. However, opposition officials have already cast doubt on whether the talks will go ahead on schedule, citing a need to see goodwill measures from the government side.

“We do not want to go to negotiations that are condemned to failure before they start. We need to create the right climate,” Hijab said. “How could we negotiate when the Syrian people are dying? Each day there are massacres.”

He said the talks had to lead to a transitional government with the president and prime minister’s full executive powers.

“INADMISSIBLE ATTACKS”

Hijab said Russia was flaunting U.N. Security Council resolutions by bombing civilians and urged the world body to ensure Russia respected its humanitarian obligations.

He also dismissed Syrian government demands that it see a list of opposition members attending the possible talks, saying the opposition would not have choices imposed on them.

Earlier on Monday French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called on Moscow and Damascus to stop “inadmissible” attacks against civilians.

Hollande and Fabius reiterated the Western view that Assad, who has strong backing from Moscow and Tehran, must relinquish power under any peace settlement.

“Bashar al-Assad has no role in the Syria of tomorrow,” Hollande said after his talks with Hijab.

Fabius said images from Madaya showing people suffering from starvation in the besieged rebel-held town underscored why the Syrian leader should step down. On Monday an aid convoy entered the town where thousands have been trapped.

(Additional reporting By Elizabeth Pineau; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Aid convoy reaches starving Syrian town of Madaya

MADAYA, Syria (Reuters) – An aid convoy entered a besieged Syrian town on Monday where thousands have been trapped without supplies for months and people are reported to have died of starvation.

Trucks carrying food and medical supplies reached Madaya near the Lebanese border and began to distribute aid as part of an agreement between warring sides, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

“Offloading of aid expected to last throughout night,” ICRC spokesman Pawel Krzysiek tweeted.

Dozens are said to have died from starvation or lack of medical care in the town and activists say some inhabitants have been reduced to eating leaves. Images said to be of emaciated residents have appeared widely on social media.

At the same time, another convoy began entering two Shi’ite villages, al Foua and Kefraya in the northwestern province of Idlib 300 km (200 miles) away. Rebel fighters in military fatigues and with scarves covering their faces inspected the aid vehicles in the rain before they entered.

Madaya is besieged by pro-Syrian government forces, while the two villages in Idlib province are encircled by rebels fighting the Syrian government.

Women cried out with relief as the first four trucks, carrying the banner of the Syria Red Crescent crossed into Madaya after sunset, with civilians waiting on the outskirts of the town as the temperature dropped and it began to get dark.

The full aid operation was expected to last several days, the ICRC said.

Images said to be from Madaya and showing skeletal men with protruding ribcages were published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the war, while an emaciated baby in a nappy with bulging eyes was shown in other posts.

Dr Mohammed Yousef, who heads a local medical team, said 67 people had died either of starvation or lack of medical aid in the last two months, mostly women, children and the elderly.

“Look at the grotesque starve-or-surrender tactics the Syrian regime is using right now against its own people. Look at the haunting pictures of civilians, including children – even babies – in Madaya, Syria,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said on Monday.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people being deliberately besieged, deliberately starved, right now. And these images, they remind us of World War Two; they shock the conscience. This is what this institution was designed to prevent.”

The United Nations said last Thursday the Syrian government had agreed to allow access to the town. The world body is planning to convene peace talks on Jan. 25 in Geneva in an effort to end nearly five years of civil war that have killed more than a quarter of a million people.

But Syrian opposition co-ordinator Riad Hijab accused Russia of killing dozens of children in a bombing raid on Monday and said such action meant the opposition could not negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

There was no immediate comment from Russia, which denies any targeting of civilians in the conflict.

WATER AND SALT

Madaya residents on the outskirts of the town said they wanted to leave. There was widespread hunger and prices of basic foods such as rice had soared, with some people living off water and salt, they said.

One opposition activist has said people were eating leaves and plants.

The blockade of Madaya has become a focal issue for Syrian opposition leaders, who told a U.N. envoy last week they would not take part in the proposed talks with the government until it and other sieges were lifted.

The siege began six months ago when the Syrian army and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, started a campaign to reestablish Assad’s control over areas along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Hezbollah responded to accusations it was starving people in Madaya by denying there had been any deaths in the town, and accusing rebel leaders of preventing people from leaving.

SIEGE WARFARE

Blockades have been a common feature of the civil war. Government forces have besieged rebel-held areas near Damascus for several years and more recently rebel groups have blockaded loyalist areas including al Foua and Kefraya.

Aid agencies welcomed Monday’s deliveries but called for regular access to besieged areas.

“Only a complete end to the six-month old siege and guarantees for sustained aid deliveries alongside humanitarian services will alleviate the crisis in these areas,” a joint statement from several international agencies said.

The areas included in the latest agreement were all part of a local ceasefire deal agreed in September, but implementation has been difficult, with some fighting around Madaya despite the truce.

Each side is looking to exert pressure on the other by restricting entry of humanitarian aid, or evacuations, in their areas of control, the Observatory says.

The last aid delivery to Madaya, which took place in October, was synchronized with a similar delivery to the two other villages.

Aid agencies have warned of widespread starvation in Madaya, where 40,000 people are at risk.

Hezbollah has said rebels in the town had taken control of aid, which they were selling to those who could buy. The people of Madaya were being exploited in a propaganda campaign, it said.

Syria’s National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar said on Sunday that rebels had “disrupted” the entry of food supplies.

“They wanted to escalate it as a humanitarian issue ahead of the Geneva talks,” he told Al Manar TV.

A U.N. commission of inquiry has said siege warfare has been used “in a ruthlessly coordinated and planned manner” in Syria, with the aim of “forcing a population, collectively, to surrender or suffer starvation”.

One siege is by the Islamic State group, on government-held areas of the city of Deir al-Zor.

A U.N. Security Council adopted on Dec. 18 setting out a road map for peace talks calls on the parties to allow aid agencies unhindered access throughout Syria, particularly in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

A newly formed opposition council set up to oversee negotiations has told U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura that this must happen before the talks he plans to hold on Jan. 25.

They also told him that before negotiations, Assad’s government, which has military support from Russia and Iran, must halt the bombardment of civilian areas and barrel bombing, and release detainees in line with the resolution.

(Reporting by John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut; additional reporting by Kinda Makieh on the outskirts of Madaya and Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman; Editing by Giles Elgood and Mark Trevelyan)

Syrian refugees face another winter in flimsy shelters

BAR ELIAS, Lebanon (Reuters) – Syrian refugee Hussein Hammoud is banking on a broom handle to protect his 12 children from the winter cold. He is using one to prop up the flimsy shelter that has already collapsed once this year under the weight of snow in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

“The snow brought down the tent on our heads, it broke the wooden frame,” said the 37-year-old from southern Aleppo, a refugee from the war that has been raging in neighboring Syria for nearly five years. “The assistance reaching us is very little in winter – no blankets, no mattresses.”

More than 1 million Syrians are enduring another winter as refugees in Lebanon. For some, it is their fifth in a row, displaced by a war that has driven 4.4 million Syrians into neighboring states from where many are trying to reach Europe.

While the first snow has melted at Hammoud’s camp in Bar elias, rainfall permeates the plastic sheets that fail to fully shield those underneath from the elements. Some bear the emblems of U.N. aid agencies. Others are advertising hoardings.

The snow-capped mountains of nearby Mount Lebanon are visible from the camp comprising around 30 tents separated by a dirt pathway that turns to mud in winter. It is one of more than 3,000 such settlements scattered across Lebanon.

“We have no fuel. Nobody is giving us fuel, and the water in the tent is this much,” said a woman in a purple scarf who gave her name as Umm Khalaf, holding her hands apart to show how badly it had flooded.

The winter brings other problems, too. Refugees in remote areas stranded by snow cannot reach shops to buy food and water.

“Clean water freezes in the tanks, sanitation becomes an issue, and diseases can spread more easily,” said Fran Beyrtison, Lebanon representative of aid agency Oxfam.

“Lebanon and the UN recently issued an appeal to help up to 2.9 million vulnerable people. The international community needs to fund this appeal urgently to allow aid to reach people in need,” she said. The appeal, for $2.5 billion, includes vulnerable Lebanese in addition to Syrian refugees.

UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, has provided support including stoves, blankets, mattresses and “insulation kits” that include insulating foam and timber, though these are designed for refugees living in larger buildings, said Dana Sleiman, UNHCR spokeswoman in Lebanon.

“We did our best to make sure that refugees are able to stay as warm and dry as possible this winter and avoid some of the issues we saw last year, like flooding,” she said.

For Umm Khalaf and others at Bar elias, another problem is explaining the situation to their children.

“The children cry and ask ‘Why is this happening’? We reply ‘God will take care of it’. What can we do?” she said.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Twin Explosions Kill At Least 19 in Syrian City

At least 19 people were killed and another 43 were severely injured when two coordinated explosions rocked a Syrian city on Monday, the nation’s official news agency reported.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency, or SANA, a car bomb exploded in Homs, a city in western Syria. As people gathered around site of the initial explosion, apparently to survey the blast’s damage, a suicide bomber entered the crowd and detonated another explosive device.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British organization that monitors the ongoing conflict in Syria, reported a higher death toll of 32 and said at least 90 people had been injured.

It wasn’t immediately clear who was responsible for the attacks.

The explosions come about two weeks after 16 people died and 54 more were injured in other blasts in Homs. The Islamic State said it was behind the Dec. 12 attacks, Reuters reported.

Both terrorist attacks came after the United Nations helped implement a Dec. 5 ceasefire truce that allowed 700 people to evacuate the final rebel-controlled part of the city, one of the most heavily damaged in the bloody civil war that has caused millions of people to flee their homes.

Monday’s blasts came as at least 300 families were being evacuated from three other Syrian communities under similar United Nations-backed agreements, according to SANA. Two of the cities are located in Idleb province and another is located near the Syrian capital of Damascus.

United Nations officials have publicly said the organization hopes such agreements, aimed at getting relief to particularly embattled Syrian communities, will foster a nationwide ceasefire.

Syria Ready to Take Part in Geneva Peace Talks: Minister

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – Syria is ready to take part in peace talks in Geneva and hopes that the dialogue will help it form a national unity government, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Thursday during a visit to Beijing.

The U.N. Security Council last Friday unanimously approved a resolution endorsing an international road map for a Syrian peace process, a rare show of unity among major powers on a conflict that has claimed more than a quarter of a million lives.

The U.N. plans to convene peace talks in Geneva toward the end of January.

Moualem, who spoke to reporters in English, said he had told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that Syria was “ready to participate in the Syrian-Syrian dialogue in Geneva without any foreign interference”.

“Our delegation will be ready as soon as we receive a list of the opposition delegation,” he said.

“We hope that this dialogue will be successful to help us in having a national unity government,” Moualem said, standing next to Wang at the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

“This government will compose a constitutional committee to look for a new constitution with a new law of election so the parliamentary election will be held within the period of 18 months, more or less.”

Friday’s resolution gives U.N. blessing to a plan negotiated earlier in Vienna that calls for a ceasefire, talks between the Syrian government and opposition and a roughly two-year timeline to create a unity government and hold elections.

But the obstacles to ending the war remain daunting, with no side in the conflict able to secure a clear military victory. Despite their agreement at the United Nations, the major powers are bitterly divided on who may represent the opposition as well as on the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Wang over the weekend invited Syrian government and opposition figures to come to China as it looks to ways to help with the peace process.

CHINESE CONCERNS

Wang declined to answer directly when asked if China thought Assad should remain in power or step down.

“China’s position is very clear. We believe Syria’s future, its national system, including its leadership, should be decided and set by the people of Syria,” he said.

“China’s role on the Syrian issue is to promote peace and negotiations … China hopes to see peaceful, stable and developing Middle East,” Wang added.

China has played host to both Syrian government and opposition figures before, though it remains a peripheral diplomatic player in the crisis.

While relying on the region for oil supplies, China tends to leave Middle Eastern diplomacy to the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, France and Russia.

China has its own security concerns in Syria, though it has not joined in the bombing of Islamic State.

“China believes that any and all efforts to combat terrorism should be respected and supported,” Wang said.

China has expressed concern that Uighurs, a mostly Muslim people from western China’s Xinjiang, have ended up in Syria and Iraq fighting for militant groups there.

(Writing by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie, Robert Birsel)

Amnesty: Russian Airstrikes in Syria ‘May Amount to War Crimes’

Russian airstrikes in Syria killed at least 200 civilians and the Russian government might have lied to cover up the deaths and widespread damage to residential areas, according to a new Amnesty International report.

The human rights organization said Tuesday that some of the strikes seemed to be directly launched at civilian areas, with no clear military target to be found, and “show evidence of violations of international humanitarian law.” In a statement, Philip Luther, who directs Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program, said the strikes “may amount to war crimes.”

The Russian Defense Ministry disputes the allegations in the report, which it says includes “fake information” and “trite clichés,” a ministry spokesman told Reuters.

Russia has been performing airstrikes in Syria since Sept. 30, independent of the United States-led coalition that is dedicated to destroying Islamic State interests. Russian government authorities have publicly stated that the airstrikes are only aimed at terrorist targets.

However, the Amnesty report cites interviews with witnesses and survivors of those attacks, as well as analysis from weapons experts, as evidence that some of the airstrikes occurred in areas where “there were no military targets or fighters in the immediate vicinity.”

The report references six specific attacks in Homes, Idleb and Aleppo between September and November. Amnesty alleges five of those strikes targeted residential areas, while the sixth occurred very close to a hospital.

Amnesty referenced a Nov. 29 incident in which three missiles hit a busy public market in Idleb, killing 49 civilians. One man told the group that he spoke to a woman who was “crying beside a line of dead bodies” after her husband and three children died in the attack. In researching the report, Amnesty said it determined that there were no apparent military targets in the area.

Amnesty’s report also references an Oct. 1 airstrike against a mosque in Idleb, which caused the deaths of two civilians. A witness told Amnesty there weren’t any military targets within 500 meters of the mosque. But the report cites comments Russian officials publicly made about the airstrike, which the officials said targeted Islamic State interests and destroyed a command post.

Weeks later, after reports surfaced that the mosque had been destroyed, Russian officials said the claims were fabricated and showed a satellite picture of the mosque supposedly still intact. However, Amnesty reported the picture showed a different mosque than the one destroyed in the attack.

Amnesty called for independent investigations into the alleged transgressions, saying Russian leaders “failed to take feasible precautions to avoid, or at least minimize, harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”

Amnesty said it also has evidence Russia used unguided bombs in civilian areas, as well as widely criticized cluster bombs. Reuters reported Russia’s Defense Ministry denied using any cluster bombs in Syria.

Amnesty reported that it is also “researching and documenting its concerns” about the airstrikes conducted by the United States-led coalition.