‘We are dying in slow motion’: World recoils as appalling proof of starving children emerges from Syria

The Syrian government has agreed to allow humanitarian assistance into three beleaguered villages, as the world recoiled in horror from images of starving residents trapped in the war-torn region.

Aid group Doctors Without Borders said 23 patients had died of starvation at an MSF-supported health centre in one of the three villages since December 1 – including six infants under one year of age and five adults over the age of 60.

A statement from Yacoub El Hillo, UN’s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, said aid will begin entering the villages in the coming days.

Two of the villages in question are the adjacent Shiite villages of Foua and Kfarya in the country’s north, which have been besieged by anti-government militants for more than a year. The third is the village of Madaya near the border with Lebanon, which has been under siege by government forces since early July.

“People are dying in slow motion,” said Louay, a social worker from Madaya, speaking in a phone interview, his voice weakened by months of abject hunger. “We had some flowers growing in pots at home. Yesterday, we picked the petals and ate them, but they were bitter, awful.”

He sent pictures of emaciated bodies of several elderly men, recent casualties of the starvation. He had not taken the pictures himself, but said the men were well known in the town.

“We used to say nobody could ever die from hunger, but we have seen people actually die of hunger.”