PHOTO: Residents of Madaya with a Red Cross worker this week

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UPDATE 1030 GMT: The international medical organization Médecins Sans Frontières says five people have died from starvation in besiged Madaya since Monday, when the first of two aid convoys arrived this week.

The UN had announced on Monday that 400 people needed immediate evacuation because of malnutrition, but it later said that they could be treated by specialists who accompanied the convoys into the town.

“This is shocking,” said Brice de le Vingne, director of operations for MSF:

Some of the current patients may not survive another day. Medical evacuations for the most critically sick and malnourished need to happen immediately, and it is hard to understand why patients clinging to life have not already been evacuated.

Nothing should be allowed to hold this up and everything possible should be done by the warring parties and the agencies involved in the convoys to expedite these evacuations as a life-saving humanitarian act.

ORIGINAL POST: The UN Security Council condemned the starvation of Syria’s civilians on Friday, but took no action against the sieges cutting off food and supplies.

The Council was pushed into discussion by events in Madaya, where the Syrian military’s six-month blockade has contributed to the deaths of an estimated 60 people and threatened thousands of others. This week, two aid deliveries finally reached the 40,000 residents of the town after the Assad regime relented in the face of international attention.

Aid also was sent into two regime enclaves, with about 12,500 people, surrounded by rebels in Idlib Province in northwest Syria.

The UN estimates that about 400,000 people are living in siege conditions — 200,000 in regime-held territory threatened by the Islamic State in eastern Syria; 181,000 in opposition areas cut off by the Syrian military; and the 12,500 in the regime enclaves of al-Fu’ah and Kafraya.

Opposition activists say the UN has significantly underestimated the numbers, The Syrian-American Medical Society say the regime is threatening at least 608,000 civilians in areas such as the Damascus suburbs and part of Homs city, while local official in Syria put the total figure at more than one million.

Children from Madaya this week — “For God’s sake, get us out”:

A “War Crime”, But What to Do?

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said the sieges amount to “war crimes”. He continued, “Tomorrow there must be accountability for all those who play with people’s lives and dignity in this way.”

Yesterday Assistant Secretary-General Kyung-Wha Kang told the Council, “Regrettably, siege and starvation as a weapon of war has become routine and systematic in Syria, with devastating consequences for civilians.”

Ambassadors such as US representative Samantha Power emphasized the responsibility of the Assad regime, but Syria’s Deputy Ambassador Mounzer Mounzer said the root cause of was “terrorism…fueled from abroad”, while claiming that the regime cares about the plight of the people. Russia’s Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said “the pretext of the deterioration of the situation in besieged cities” was being used to undermine plans for opposition-regime talks on January 25.

The meeting concluded with no decisions. Any resolution focusing on the Assad regime is likely to be vetoed by its ally Russia.

Moscow did show some concern with the shift in events and opinion, however, as its Foreign Ministry tweeted on Friday:

UN Complicity with the Assad Regime?

The lack of action by the UN was highlighted this week by a letter from 112 Syrian activists which said the organization’s personnel were “either too close to the regime or too scared of having their visas revoked” to push President Assad’s officials into provision of aid.

The letter concluded, “For many of us in Syria, the UN has turned from a symbol of hope into a symbol of complicity.”

See Syria Letter: 112 Syrian Activists to UN — “You Are Helping Assad with Sieges”

British Foreign Secretary: Russia Deliberately Targeting Civilians

The British Foreign Secretary has said that Russia’s airstrikes are deliberately targeting civilians in Syria, following his meetings with Syrian civil defence workers in southern Turkey.

Philip Hammond said:

The Russians are deliberately attacking civilians, and the evidence points to them deliberately attacking schools and hospitals and deliberately targeting rescue workers.

If you go back for a second strike, you know what you are doing.

Hammond said the Russian attacks on civilians are making it almost impossible to build the confidence necessary for opposition-regime talks scheduled for January 25.

The Foreign Secretary said he would take up the issue with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, although he predicted he would get “nothing but flannel from Moscow”:

We in Britain have been rightly challenged about Saudi Arabia in Yemen and why we maintain our confidence in the Saudis not breaching international law. But the much bigger story here is Russia. They are supposedly our ally sitting at the same table in the negotiations on Syria’s future, but they are targeting civilians – they should be held to account under international law.

Picture: Rally in Idlib Calling for Unity

One of a series of photographs of a rally in opposition-held Idlib city, calling for unity and supporting rebels:

IDLIB RALLY 01-16

Russia: We May Publish Data on US Airstrikes

Russia has tried a new tactic to counter criticism of its bombing of civilians in Syria — its Defense Ministry says it may begin publishing data on the results of airstrikes by the US-led coalition.

Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Friday that the declared outcome of coalition attacks were not always accurate: “To disprove further rumours and accusations against us and if our colleagues keep silent on the results of their bombings in Syria, we will ourselves have to inform the public of these facts.”