Syria’s children ‘waiting to be killed’

Some 250,000 children are trapped in Syria without food, medicine or electricity, Save the Children reports in a major new study.

Youngsters told the charity they have become so terrified they “now wait for their turn to be killed”.

Fear and starvation have taken hold in the war- ravaged country, where civilians are killed by barrel bombs and those trapped in besieged communities have resorted to eating boiled leaves and animal feed to survive.

The charity’s CEO, Tanya Steele, said the report, ‘Syria Childhood Under Siege,’ released ahead of the war’s fifth anniversary next week, showed it was time to end sieges around key cities.

She said: “Children are dying from lack of food and medicines in parts of Syria just a few kilometres from warehouses that are piled high with aid. They are paying the price for the world’s inaction.

“Families interviewed for this report spoke of sick babies dying at checkpoints, vets treating humans and children forced to eat animal feed as they cower in basements from airstrikes.

“Enough is enough. After nearly five years of conflict in Syria, it’s time to end the sieges.”

Warring groups are illegally using siege as a “weapon of war” against civilians, the study suggested.

Those trapped in besieged communities refer to them as “death camps”, and despite repeated UN resolutions calling for humanitarian access to these towns and cities, they are still not getting the life-saving help they need.

Electricity black-outs mean medics have to operate by candlelight and sick babies are dying at checkpoints because of delays in reaching medical care, the charity found.

Malnutrition is widespread and children “wander around in a daze from hunger”.

Families said they were trapped in an “open-air prison” where snipers try to shoot anyone who leaves, while women are dying in childbirth because doctors lack basic medical equipment, the report found.

The number of people under siege has more than doubled in the past year, while the number of barrel bombs dropped on these areas “increased significantly” in the second half of 2015 -— before the recently-brokered ceasefire — the report found.

It states: “At least a quarter of a million children are living under brutal siege in areas of Syria that have effectively been turned into open-air prisons.

More than 125 adults and children in eight besieged areas were interviewed by the charity for the study, which comes as world leaders and warring parties are due to restart peace talks in Geneva.

It found that less than 1% of people in besieged areas received UN food aid in 2015 and only around 3% received health assistance. While more aid is being sent to besieged communities since the cessation of hostilities brokered last month, the charity warned that so far “only a tiny fraction of what is needed” is getting in.

Some vital medicine, fuel and high nutrition food is still not being allowed onto convoys while many of the sick remain stranded.

Save the Children accused the international community of “failure” in Syria, and demanded that factions immediately lift their sieges and ensure safe passage for humanitarian agencies to deliver aid.