iStock/Thinkstock(LONDON) — Long-awaited aid has reached Madaya and three other besieged Syrian towns for the first time since April.
Humanitarian assistance was supposed to arrive in Madaya, Foah, Zabadani and Kefraya last Tuesday, but that delivery was put on temporary hold following an attack on an aid convoy in western Aleppo that left at least 21 people dead.
On Sunday, trucks with wheat flour and food enough for the four towns’ 60,000 residents, most of whom are women and children, finally arrived. The aid also included medical and hygiene supplies.
“Sunday, we had a convoy deliver aid to Madaya, Foah, Zabadani and Kefraya,” David Swanson, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told ABC News.
“We are very happy,” Hala Yousef, 40, a teacher in Madaya told ABC News after aid arrived Sunday. “The aid trucks are parked near my house. It’s very busy and there’s a sound of cars and children. There’s widespread joy. It’s like a holiday.”
Yousef last week expressed fear following news that aid to Madaya’s estimated 40,000 residents was suspended.
“We are on the verge of famine. Many people don’t have any food supplies left,” she said last week. “My body is very weak. I always have a headache and fever. In the morning, I feel like I don’t want to get up, like I didn’t get enough sleep and my body is tired. I have no energy.”
Madaya is facing a meningitis epidemic, according to Save the Children. Yousef is one of many residents who suffer from the disease. People live without basic food such as flour, vegetables, fruit and meat. Their main diet is bulgur and rice, which Yousef says they mix in order to bake bread.
Many in Madaya are out of work. Others, including Yousef’s husband, don’t get paid, she said. At the same time, prices of food are extremely high — Yousef says that the normal price for two pounds of cucumbers or tomatoes is more than $20, while canned tuna costs almost $30. Yousef makes $200 a month, but sends all the money to her sister in Lebanon who takes care of her three children who were able to leave Madaya over a year ago. Yousef and her husband couldn’t leave because they are wanted by the Syrian government for doing aid work, she said.
“There is almost never meat and almost never any kind of fresh fruit or vegetables. We have heard of children who were 4 or 5 years old who saw pictures of an apple and didn’t know what it was because they had never seen one in their memory,” Misty Buswell, Save the Children’s regional advocacy director for the Middle East, told ABC News.
An estimated 13.5 million people, including 6 million children, are in need of humanitarian assistance in Syria, according to the United Nations. Of these, 5.47 million people are in hard-to-reach areas, including the close to 600,000 people in 18 besieged areas.
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