Besieged Madaya residents face starvation
The residents of Madaya in the western countryside of Damascus are suffering from lack of food and medical supplies as a result of the siege imposed by the Syrian regime.
DAMASCUS, Syria — The residents of Madaya are dying — victims of starvation, land mines, opportunists and a broken truce. Those who are still alive exist in what resembles a prison.
In July, the Syrian regime sieged the town in the western countryside of Damascus to pressure opposition fighters in nearby Zabadani. In the months since, the situation has grown dire.
“To die quickly and suddenly by the shelling of the Syrian army is more merciful than the slow death that we terribly face every day,” Manal al-Abdullah, a civil rights activist from Madaya, told Al-Monitor via Skype.
“We are dying in this big prison called Madaya. We reached a dead end following the failure of the truce agreement. They did not allow us to leave or bring in food. There is no solution in sight to the hunger crisis we are living. We ask the regime and the opposition to settle their political disputes away from civilians. We can no longer endure this situation.”
