Video: Civilians evacuated from Moadamiyyat Ash Sham, Daraya on Sunday
On Sunday, the Syrian Red Crescent announced that it had succeeded in evacuating hundreds of civilians — most of them women and children — from the West Ghouta towns of Moadamiyyat Ash Sham and Daraya.
#URGENT @SYRedCrescent manage to evacuate around 1500 civilians mostly women & children from #Moadamia #Syria to shelters in #Damascus
— Syrian Red Crescent (@SYRedCrescent) October 12, 2013
The humanitarian situation in Moadamiyyat Ash Sham, one of the towns hit by the August 21 chemical weapons attacks, has grown increasingly desperate. The town has been under a regime-imposed siege since November 2012 and has been subject to daily regime air strikes, tank shelling and artillery bombardment. Regime ground forces aided by Hezbollah fighters are pushing insurgents on the town’s northern front line in an attempt to invade the town.
Civilians inside Moadamiyyat Ash Sham told EA last week that they feared a mass killing by regime forces, should pro-Assad fighters succeed in entering the town.
With food and medical supplies completely cut off, civilians say that food stores ran out last month and there have been an increasing number of severe malnutrition cases and even deaths. Activists say 11 people have starved to death in the city so far, and that many civilians are reduced to gathering and eating leaves off trees and dried figs to survive. The regime has also cut off the town’s water supplies.
Doctors in Moadamiyyat Ash Sham have documented a number of starvation cases, including two people last month — 5-year-old Imad Sawan and 30-year-old Mona Ragab. Activists said that both victims had been injured in regime shelling and died due to their injuries as well as malnutrition.
Video report by the Shaam News Network documenting child deaths by starvation and malnutrition in the city:
