In a Middle East torn apart by war and conflict, fighters are increasingly using food as a weapon.
Millions of people across countries like Syria, Yemen and Iraq are gripped by hunger, struggling to survive with little help from the outside world. Children suffer from severe malnutrition, their parents often having to beg or sell possessions to get basic commodities including water, medicine and fuel.
The biggest humanitarian catastrophe by far is Syria, where a ruinous five-year civil war has killed a quarter of a million people and displaced half the population. All sides in the conflict have used punishing blockades to force submission and surrender from the other side — a tactic that has proved effective particularly for government forces seeking to pacify opposition-held areas around the capital Damascus.
Humanitarian teams who recently entered a besieged Syrian town witnessed scenes that “haunt the soul,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He accused both the government of President Bashar Assad and the rebels fighting to oust him of using starvation as a weapon, calling it a war crime.
The UN and aid agencies have struggled with funding shortages and growing impediments to the delivery of humanitarian assistance despite Security Council resolutions insisting on the unconditional delivery of aid across front lines.
In Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished nation, nearly half of the country’s 22 provinces are ranked as one step away from famine conditions.
Here’s a look at major areas in the Middle East under siege or suffering starvation--
Syria
The UN estimates more than 400,000 people are besieged in 15 communities across Syria, roughly half of them in areas controlled by the Dae’sh group. In 2014, the UN was able to deliver food to about 5% of people in besieged areas, while in 2016 estimates show the organisation is reaching less than 1%.
In 2015, the World Food Programme was forced to reduce the size of the food rations it provides to families inside Syria by up to 25% because of a funding shortfall. The agency says it has to raise $25m every week to meet the basic food needs of people affected by the Syrian conflict.
According to the UN children’s agency, malnutrition is a major threat among millions of refugees. A Unicef report last year showed that almost 2,000 Syrian refugee children in Lebanon are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and need immediate treatment to survive.
It warned that situation could deteriorate even further as malnutrition is linked to such factors as poor hygiene, unsafe drinking water, lack of immunization, diseases and improper infant and young child feeding practices.
Yemen
The humanitarian situation has dramatically deteriorated, nearly 300 days after the Saudi-led coalition began its air campaign aimed at driving Yemen’s Shia rebels from cities under their control. Coalition naval ships are blockading traffic in Yemen’s ports and rebels are besieging several areas, particularly the southern city of Taiz. Some 14.4m Yemenis, more than half of the population, are food insecure, an increase of 12% in the last eight months, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said Thursday. In late December, the WFP said 7.8m of Yemen’s 24m people are in even more dire condition, “facing life-threatening rates of acute malnutrition,” up by more than 3m in less than a year. It said 10 of the country’s 22 provinces are in “the grip of severe food insecurity” at the “emergency” level, one step short of famine on the agency’s 5-level scale of food security. The severe shortage of food, fuel and medicine across Yemen led to an increase in the number of children suffering from malnutrition while the destruction of health facilities treating them led to deaths. Some 3m children under five years require services to treat or prevent malnutrition, according to a Unicef report on January 13.
Iraq
Massive population shifts in Iraq due to violence has made it more difficult for millions of people to access food, medicine and safe drinking water. More than 3m Iraqis are displaced within the country by violence and instability. Ongoing violence in many of Iraq’s provinces that are also home to people who have been uprooted by conflict is of the greatest concern. In Anbar, Ninevah and Salahuddin the price of food has risen by as much as 38% in the last month, and in some cases the Iraqi government has had to airlift families out of towns and villages besieged by fighting between Iraqi government forces and Dae’sh fighters.
