Many people in the world today are not starving because there is an inherent inability to produce food, they are starving because they are caught in the middle of political fights and blockades that have been used as weapons – Ralph Merkle
I was appalled when I heard about the mother who was giving her 7 month old baby water and salt because there is no food in Madaya, Syria. Tears came to my eyes when I saw the sunken face of a baby, his large eyes staring at the camera. This precious, innocent child and many others are starving in Madaya. Some have died. This atrocity begs the question: How could a leader of a country do this to his people?
It’s hard to watch this video but it is something everyone needs to be aware of.
People were forced to live on tree leaves and plants but now that winter has set in there are no more plants and leaves. Majed Ali, a 28 year old opposition activist, was 114 kilos before the siege and is now 80. Abu Hassan Mousa, head of Madaya opposition council sees no point in negotiating when children are going without milk. “What are we going to negotiate over?” he demands. “Our dead?” The Syrian people went for months without aid. In fact, the October was the last time aid was delivered to Madaya.
Seeing the crisis in Syria motivated me to get in touch with Julie Marshall, Canadian Spokesperson of the United Nations World Food Programme. I wanted to know what people in Canada can do to help and this is what she had to say:
The good news is the first UN convoy will move to Madaya carrying food for 40,000 people for one month will set off as early as Sunday. On Monday, other convoys carrying food should move into the besieged towns of Foah and Kefraya in rural Idlib with WFP food for 20,000 people. Non-food items, including medicine, specialist nutrition products, kitchen sets, blankets, winter clothing and other supplies will hopefully follow in the next few days.
The last humanitarian supplies reached Madaya on October 17 on an interagency convey – this was enough food to feed more than 19,000 people for one month. The convoy was a result of a locally negotiated agreement reached between the opposition and government to allow access to four besieged communities in Idlib and rural Damascus (Foah, Kefraya, Zabadani and Madaya). Since then, no food assistance or humanitarian supplies have reached these areas.
WFP provides food assistance to over 4 million people displaced inside Syria in both government and opposition-controlled areas every month. And around 1.3 million refugees in neighbouring countries.
Canada has been one of WFP’s largest donors to our response in the region and we hope the extension of the matching funds, until the end of February will encourage Canadians to donate to organizations like WFP working in Syria.
Canadians can support WFP by donating here: https://give.wfp.org/en/629/?step=country
Also, we launched an app a few months ago called ShareTheMeal which makes it extremely easy to support our school meals for Syrian refugee school children living in Jordan.
It is extremely difficult to see babies starving. And it upsets me when I see food go to waste when there are people starving everyday. Let us do what we can to help the people in Syria. Hunger is a terrible thing and something that we need to fight against. The starvation in Syria is likened to warfare. It’s like when Hitler starved the Russian people during the battle of Stalingrad. Hunger is being used as a weapon to oppress the people and this cannot and should not be allowed to happen. Let us help WFP and other humanitarian agencies to save the lives of the men, women and children in Syria.
