Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
A man carries two young boys through a heavily damaged street in Arbin, eastern Ghouta
A man carries two young boys through a street covered in debris in eastern Ghouta. Photograph: Diaa al Din/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
A man carries two young boys through a street covered in debris in eastern Ghouta. Photograph: Diaa al Din/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

'Facing disaster': children starve in siege of Syria's former breadbasket

This article is more than 6 years old

With a political breakthrough unlikely at upcoming talks, people in eastern Ghouta face shortages of food, fuel and medicine

The sight of a woman weeping as she drags her malnourished children into a clinic is not rare in eastern Ghouta, which is under siege by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad.

But when one mother told Abdel Hamid, a doctor, that she had fed her four starving children newspaper cutouts softened with water to stop them from screaming into the night, even he was stunned.

“I could try to describe to you how terrible the conditions are in which we are living, but the reality would still be worse,” said Abdel Hamid, who did not give his full name.

More than 400,000 people still live in the region bordering Damascus that was once a breadbasket for the capital city, but has endured many of the horrors of Syria’s six-year war.

Map of eastern Ghouta

The siege of eastern Ghouta, which suffered in the deadly 2013 sarin gas attack that nearly provoked a US intervention in the war, has continued for years with conditions getting steadily worse. Siege Watch, a project that tracks blockades in Syria, has said the area is “on the brink of disaster”.

The lack of fuel will leave many more people struggling to survive in the cold as winter sets in. Airstrikes have continued, with rescue workers saying 181 targeted eastern Ghouta this week.

The region had long been porous, with smugglers able to maintain supply lines for some foodstuffs and goods. This ended in April after a major government offensive in the area that tightened the blockade. Aid workers and residents report that malnourishment among children is rife and there is an acute shortage of medicine and supplies. Most of the food that can be found is too expensive and airstrikes and shelling continue to devastate towns with limited supplies of electricity and clean drinking water.

“Fridges don’t exist as part of our life,” said Abdel Hamid. “Actually, anything that needs electricity is not used. Thank God we don’t have cholera yet.”

Eastern Ghouta is supposed to be covered under a de-escalation agreement brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran to reduce conflict across Syria in order to pave the way for talks on a political settlement. The Syrian opposition is in disarray and forces loyal to the president, Assad, have maintained their military momentum with the aid of allies in Moscow and Tehran, and thousands of Shia militia fighters from Iraq and Lebanon, are inching closer to a military victory in the six-year war.

Earlier this month, a report by Amnesty International concluded that the Assad regime had committed crimes against humanity through its systematic use of “surrender or starve” sieges.

A boy surveys damaged buildings and vehicles after an airstrike in Douma, south-western Syria. Photograph: Mohammed Badra/EPA

On Thursday, the main Syrian opposition group, meeting in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, said it continued to reject any role for Assad at the start of a UN-sponsored interim period leading to a political transition. This position reduces the chances of a political breakthrough at the latest round of the UN peace talks in Geneva on Tuesday. The president’s future has for years been the repeated stumbling block in negotiations towards an agreement.

The lack of progress on peace talks will perpetuate the suffering of civilians in eastern Ghouta. The Assad regime’s siege and infighting between local rebel groups has further complicated aid deliveries, which are either routinely denied or allowed in in fits and starts. A Red Cross and Red Crescent joint convoy to the town of Douma 11 days ago was the first in three months, and only provided supplies for 21,500 people.

Doctors and aid workers say medicine for chronic illnesses such as diabetes is severely lacking, medical equipment needs repairs and they are unable to provide regular and routine vaccinations for children.

Cases of tuberculosis, brucellosis, hepatitis and measles have been reported, as well as cases of moderate and severe malnutrition, in addition to some cases of dwarfism, where children are developmentally stunted due to a lack of nutrition, meaning a child of five would remain at the height of a two-year-old.

The crisis gained worldwide attention when images surfaced in October of a one-month-old baby who died from malnourishment, whose mother was unable to breastfeed her because she was also underfed.

Smoke rises behind a minaret in the rebel-held town of Arbin, near the Syrian capital, Damascus. Photograph: Amer Almohibany/AFP/Getty Images

Residents often have to rely on wells for unfiltered and untreated drinking water that is brought up from the ground using manual pumps. Most families make do with one meal a day, and 1kg (2.2lb) of bread had risen in price last week to the equivalent of about $5.50 (£4.10), with few locals having the means to pay for whatever foodstuffs are on the market.

Ingy Sedky, the International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman in Syria, said: “Be it in eastern Ghouta or elsewhere in Syria, irregularity of access can make the humanitarian situation deteriorate very quickly.

“No matter how much food we can bring in one convoy, it will not sustain the population for more than a month. This is why humanitarian organisations should be able to have access on a regular basis.”

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, described the siege of eastern Ghouta as an “outrage” last month.

Elizabeth Hoff, the World Health Organization representative in Syria, said: “The situation is heartbreaking. For months, the people of eastern Ghouta have been subjected to sustained deprivation, restrictions on humanitarian access and serious human rights violations.

“We have now reached a critical point where the lives of hundreds of people, including many children, are at stake. If they do not immediately get the medical care they urgently need, they will most likely die.”

Most viewed

Most viewed