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Subject: [WUNRN] Syria - Severre
Food & Water Shortages - Women & Children - UN Authorises Cross-Border
Aid Against Syria Government Refusal
WUNRN
SYRIA - SEVERE FOOD &
WATER SHORTAGES - WOMEN & CHILDREN - UN AUTHORISES CROSS-BORDER AID AGAINST
SYRIA GOVERNMENT REFUSAL
- Gaunt, haggard Syrian
children begging and selling gum have become a fixture in streets of the
Lebanese capital; having fled the ongoing conflict, they continue to be stalked
by its effects.
Most
who make it across the Syria-Lebanon border live in informal settlements in
extremely poor hygienic conditions, which for many means diarrhoeal diseases,
malnutrition, and – for the most vulnerable – sometimes death.
By
the end of January, almost 40,000 Syrian children had been born as refugees,
while the total number of minors who had fled abroad quadrupled
to over 1.2 million between March 2013 and March 2014.
Lack of proper
healthcare, food and clean water has resulted in countless loss of life during
the Syrian conflict, now well into its fourth year. These deaths are left out
of the daily tallies of ‘war casualties’, even as stunted bodies and emaciated
faces peer out of photos from areas under siege.
The
case of the Yarmouk Palestinian camp on the outskirts of Damascus momentarily
grabbed the international community’s attention earlier this year, when Amnesty
International released a report detailing the deaths of nearly 200 people
under a government siege. Many other areas have experienced and continue to
suffer the same fate, out of the public spotlight.
A
Palestinian-Syrian originally from Yarmouk who has escaped abroad told IPS that
some of her family are still in Hajar Al-Aswad, an area near Damascus with a
population of roughly 600,000 prior to the conflict. She said that those
trapped in the area were suffering ‘’as badly if not worse than in Yarmouk’’
and had been subjected to equally brutal starvation tactics. The area has,
however, failed to garner similar attention.
The city of
With the
The first supplies will include
water sanitation tablets and hygiene kits, essential to preventing the
water-borne diseases responsible for diarrhoea – which, in turn, produces
severe states of malnutrition.
Miram Azar, from UNICEF’s
Beirut office, told IPS that ‘’prior to the Syria crisis, malnutrition
was not common in Lebanon or Syria, so UNICEF and other actors have had to
educate public health providers on the detection, monitoring and treatment’’
even before beginning to deal with the issue itself.
However, it was already on the
rise: ‘’malnutrition was a challenge to
Malnutrition experienced
in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life (from pregnancy to two years old)
results in lifelong consequences,
including greater susceptibility to illness, obesity, reduced cognitive
abilities and lower development potential of the nation they live in.
Azar noted that ‘’malnutrition
is a concern due to the deteriorating food security faced by refugees before
they left
The Syrian economy has been
crippled by the conflict and crop production has fallen drastically. Violence
has destroyed farms, razed fields and displaced farmers.
The price of basic foodstuffs
has become prohibitive in many areas. On a visit to rebel-held areas in the
northern Idlib province autumn of 2013, residents told IPS that the cost of
staples such as rice and bread had risen by more than ten times their cost
prior to the conflict, and in other areas inflation was worse.
Jihad Yazigi , an expert on the
Syrian economy, argued in a European Council on Foreign Affairs (ECFR) policy brief published earlier this
year that the war economy, which ‘’both feeds directly off the violence and
incentivises continued fighting’’, was becoming ever more entrenched.
Meanwhile, political prisoners
who have been released as a result of amnesties tell stories of severe water
and food deprivation within jails. Many were detained on the basis of
peaceful activities, including exercising their right to freedom of expression
and providing humanitarian aid, on the basis of a counterterrorism law adopted
by the government in July 2012.
There are no accurate figures
available for
Maher Esber, a former political
prisoner who was in one of Syria’s most notorious jails between 2006 and 2011
and is now an activist living in the Lebanese capital, told IPS that it was
normal for taps to be turned on for only 10 minutes per day for drinking and
hygiene purposes in the detention facilities.
Much of the country’s water
supply has also been damaged or destroyed over the past years, with knock-on
effects on infectious diseases and malnutrition. A major pumping station in
The U.N. decision earlier this month was made subsequent to refusal by the Syrian regime to comply with a February resolution demanding rapid, safe, and unhindered access, and the Syrian regime had warned that it considered non-authorised aid deliveries into rebel-held areas as an attack.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
WUNRN
Syria - Inside & Across Borders, Little Girls Are
Starving, Hungry, Dying
Website Link Includes Video.
One-year-old Rana, who starved to death
When
she was brought to a field hospital in rebel-held Moadamia, one mile north of
Duaa
al Sheikh, a 7-year-old Syrian girl in Moadamia, died due to malnutrition.
DEPRIVAL OF
FOOD, WATER, SHELTER & MEDICAL CARE - A METHOD OF WAR IN SYRIA, AND A CRIME
AGAINST HUMANITY - UN EXPERTS
GENEVA (6 February 2014) – A group of United Nations independent experts* on the human rights to food, health, housing, water and sanitation, and on summary executions and torture, today urged all parties to the Syrian conflict to stop the use of civilian suffering as a method of war.
“As
reports are piling up of indiscriminate shelling of civilians, enforced
disappearances and executions, another horror of the war in Syria is becoming
apparent: the deprivation of basic necessities of life and the denial of
humanitarian relief as a method of war,” they warned.
“Depriving
people of their access to food and water, impeding their access to health
services and wantonly destroying their housing constitute clear violations of
the human rights to food, to water, to sanitation, to housing, to health, and
to freedom from inhumane treatment, protected under international human rights
treaties,” the experts said.
“The
acts being committed amount to crimes against humanity, carried out as a
deliberate and systematic effort to cause civilian suffering,” the rights
experts stressed. “They also constitute war crimes and serious violations of
customary international humanitarian law which binds all parties.”
The
experts underscored that targeting medical units and medical personnel, making
civilians the object of attack, subjecting them to inhumane treatment,
obstructing humanitarian relief, attacking objects crucial for the survival of
civilians, and using starvation as a method of warfare is explicitly banned.
The
UN estimates that 9.3 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian
assistance. Some 6.5 million people live as internally displaced within the
country, having fled their homes and left behind their sources of livelihood.
More than 6 million are in critical need of sustained food assistance.
“Numerous
cases show that government and pro-government forces as well as armed
opposition groups are impeding humanitarian relief to populations facing
extreme deprivation, including children, women, older persons, persons with
disabilities, the chronically sick, and civilians and persons hors combat held
in detention,” the group of experts said.
The
situation is most critical for the quarter of a million people living in
communities under siege, such as Nubul and Al-Zahraa in rural Aleppo, Eastern
Ghouta, Darayya and Moadamiyah in rural Damascus, the Old City in Homs; and the
Yarmouk Camp in Damascus.
The
UN estimates that over 100,000 people trapped in and around Yarmouk Camp are
now in severe risk of starvation. From other besieged areas, reports are
emerging of chronic child malnutrition and health problems caused by a lack of
access to vital nutrients and safe drinking water.
“Apart
from obstructing humanitarian access through sieges and tight check-points,
attacks have been carried out to destroy harvests, kill livestock, and cut off
water supplies, with the apparent aim of starving out the targeted
populations,” the experts noted. “At the same time, entire neighborhoods and residences
are being razed, aggravating the dire housing situation, causing further
displacement.”
“We
also express alarm at consistent reports of deliberate destruction of hospitals
and medical units, and of arrests, ill-treatment, torture and killings of
doctors, nurses, medical volunteers and ambulance drivers.”
“These
acts are morally abhorrent, and present a major obstacle to building peace,”
they stated. “We are outraged by the extreme human suffering caused by the
apparent blatant disregard for human rights and humanitarian law.”
“We
urge all parties to the conflict to ensure immediate humanitarian relief to the
large parts of the population experiencing extreme deprivation. The use of
civilian suffering as a method of war must stop,” the group of experts
concluded.
(*) The experts: The Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter; the
Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest
attainable standard of physical and mental health, Anand
Grover; the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a
component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to
non-discrimination in this context, Raquel Rolnik; the Special Rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof
Heyns; the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez; and the Special
Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation,
Catarina de Albuquerque.
The
United Nations human rights experts are part of what it is
known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council.
Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN
Human Rights, is the general name of the independent fact-finding and
monitoring mechanisms of the Human Rights Council that address either specific
country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world.
They
are charged by the Human Rights Council to monitor, report and advise on human
rights issues. Currently, there are 37 thematic mandates and 14 mandates
related to countries and territories, with 72 mandate holders. In March 2014,
three new mandates will be added. Special Procedures experts work on a
voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their
work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in
their individual capacity.
Food: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Food/Pages/FoodIndex.aspx
Health: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Health/Pages/SRRightHealthIndex.aspx
Housing: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/HousingIndex.aspx
Torture: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Torture/SRTorture/Pages/SRTortureIndex.aspx
Water & sanitation: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/WaterAndSanitation/SRWater/Pages/SRWaterIndex.aspx
For
further information and media inquiries, please contact Ulrik
Halsteen (+41 22 917 9323 / srfood@ohchr.org).
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