Starvation in Syria 'a war crime,' U.N. chief says

Ali was 16 years old and badly malnourished.

Workers for UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, met him in a makeshift hospital in the Syrian city of Madaya. The city is controlled by rebels and under siege by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Its people are starving.

The UNICEF team screened the children they found in the hospital. They found 22 children under the age of 5 suffering from malnutrition, according to a statement Friday from Hanaa Singer, the organization's representative in Syria. They also found six children between the ages of 6 and 18 suffering from severe malnutrition.

One of whom was Ali. And, in front of their eyes, Ali died.

The team, Singer said, was "saddened and shocked."

'Scenes that haunt the soul'

"The people we met in Madaya were exhausted and extremely frail," Singer said. "Doctors were emotionally distressed and mentally drained, working 'round the clock with very limited resources to provide treatment to children and people in need. It is simply unacceptable that this is happening in the 21st century."

The starvation here is no act of God -- not the result of drought or flooding or crop failure.

This famine is man-made. And it is drawing international condemnation.

The use of starvation as a weapon in Syria is "a war crime," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday.

"U.N. teams have witnessed scenes that haunt the soul," Ban said. "The elderly and children, men and women, who were little more than skin and bones: gaunt, severely malnourished, so weak they could barely walk, and utterly desperate for the slightest morsel."

He spoke after U.N. convoys had finally arrived in Syrian towns to deliver food to malnourished residents.

Ban said the United Nations and partners delivered food to about 5% of people in areas struck by civil war in 2014, compared to 1% Thursday. That situation is "utterly unconscionable," he said.

"Let me be clear: The use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime," he said. "All sides -- including the Syrian government, which has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians -- are committing this and other atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law."

Meanwhile, the second wave of aid convoys entered the besieged Syrian cities of Madaya, al-Fouaa and Kefraya on Thursday evening, delivering desperately needed food and humanitarian supplies to residents, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

Pawel Krzysiek, spokesman for ICRC Syria, tweeted that all trucks in the convoys had entered the blockaded cities, and the offloading of their cargo had begun.

"We now meet the families to talk about their needs," he said on Twitter.