Reports | 25 05 2020
The international organization “Save the Children” announced that quarter of a million children at least live under siege in several areas in Syria, and a lot of them have to eat feed dedicated to animals and tree leaves to survive.
The organization mentioned on Wednesday, in a report entitled "besieged childhood", that "with the approach of fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict in Syria, there are a quarter of a million Syrian children at least living under a brutal siege in areas that have been successfully converted to open prisons."
It added, “those children and their families have discontinued from the outside world and they are surrounded by warring groups which used the illegal siege, and prevented food, medicine, fuel and other vital supplies to enter, and prevent people from escaping."
"Save The Children" explained, that "the siege imposed on cities and villages of Syria, has become stronger than ever, while the access of humanitarian organizations to these areas almost non-existent, but even shrunk in the past year."
The organization's report is based on the testimonies of 126 mothers, fathers and children living in the besieged areas as well as 25 interviews with workers in relief, medicine and education.
The report said, "These reports show how sick children are dying while the medication they need is on the opposite side of the barrier, and how they are forced to eat animals feed and tree leaves, and they are just a few kilometers from the food stores."
The organization said in its report on Raed who is an aid worker in Muadamiyah, in Damascus countryside, which is besieged by the forces the Syrian regime, saying: "The children there are nearly dead and forced to eat leaves," referring to "prevent the introduction of flour and milk to the region."
Hassan, a resident in the city of Deir ez-Zor controlled by ISIS 60% of its neighborhoods, said "when we do not find the food we eat herbs ... I used to lie to my kids and tell them that the herbs are edible... but who I am lying to? They were not edible”.
The siege policy in Syria turned into a war weapon used by all parties, as according to the United Nations 486 thousand people currently live in areas besieged by the Syrian regime's military or militant factions or "ISIS."