In a Middle East torn asunder by wars and conflicts, fighters are increasingly using food as a weapon of war. Millions of people across the Middle Eastern countries like Iraq, Syria and Yemen are gripped by hunger and struggling to survive with little help from the outside world. Children suffer from severe starvation, malnutrition, and their parents often having to beg or sell possessions to buy basic commodities including water, medicine and fuel.Hunger and death trap in Middle East
While conflict in Iraq has not led to cases of starvation there has been an increase in cases of malnutrition as people eat less to conserve the little food they have
Sarwar Md. Saifullah Khaled
In a Middle East torn asunder by wars and conflicts, fighters are increasingly using food as a weapon of war. Millions of people across the Middle Eastern countries like Iraq, Syria and Yemen are gripped by hunger and struggling to survive with little help from the outside world. Children suffer from severe starvation, malnutrition, and their parents often having to beg or sell possessions to buy 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 of 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 city Damascus.
Since October 2015, Russian air strikes and the start of yet another winter have exacerbated a humanitarian crisis and led to deaths from starvation in some places. The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that humanitarian teams who recently entered a besieged Syrian town witnessed scenes that haunt the soul. 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.
Although sieges are an accepted military practice that are often carried out by forces seeking to avoid intense urban conflict, but the conduct of forces carrying them out and their behaviour toward civilian populations are regulated by international humanitarian law. Past cases include the sieges of Gorazde and Sarajevo during the Bosnian war. 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.
The UN estimates more than 400,000 people are besieged in 15 communities across Syria, roughly half of them in areas controlled by the Islamic State (IS) group. In 2014, the UN was able to deliver food to about five percent of people in besieged areas, while today estimates show the organization is reaching less than one percent.
In 2015, the World Food Programme (WFP) was forced to reduce the size of the food rations it provides to families inside Syria by up to 25 percent because of a funding shortfall. The agency says it has to raise US$25 million every week to meet the basic food needs of people affected by the Syrian conflict. Some of the hardest hit blockaded areas in Syria are, Madaya, a town northeast of Damascus with a population of 40,000. The town has been besieged by government and allied militiamen for months and gained international attention after harrowing pictures emerged showing emaciated children. Doctors without Borders say 28 people have died of starvation in Madaya since September 2015. Two convoys of humanitarian aid were delivered to the town last week. Aid workers who entered the town described seeing skeletal figures of children who could barely talk or walk, and parents who gave their kids sleeping pills to calm their hunger.
Others are Fouaa and Kfarya, two Shiite villages in the northern province of Idlib with a combined population of around 20,000. The villages have been blockaded by rebels for more than a year. Pro-government fighters recently evacuated from the villages describe desperate conditions there with scarce food and medicine, saying some residents are eating grass to survive and undergoing surgery without anesthesia. Aid convoys entered the villages simultaneously with the aid to Madaya after months-long negotiations between the government and armed groups.
Another is Deir el-Zour. An estimated 200,000 people living in government-held parts of this city in eastern Syria are besieged by the IS group. The UN says most of the residents are women and children facing sharply deteriorating conditions due to the ban on all commercial or humanitarian access, as well as the inability of residents to move outside the city. While government stocks continue to provide bread, there are severe shortages of food, water, medicine and basic commodities. Opposition activists say they have documented the death of 27 people from malnutrition. Water is available only once a week for few hours.
Last year 2015 a UNICEF report showed that almost 2,000 Syrian refugee children in Lebanon are suffering from severe hunger, 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.
In Yemen, the Arab worlds most impoverished nation, nearly half of the countrys 22 provinces are ranked as one step away from famine conditions. The humanitarian situation has dramatically deteriorated, nearly 300 days after the Saudi-led coalition began its air campaign aimed at driving Yemens Shiite rebels from cities under their control. Coalition naval ships are blockading traffic in Yemens ports and rebels are besieging several areas, particularly the southern city of Taiz. The UNs Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on January 28, 2016 that some 14.4 million Yemenis, more than half of the population, are food insecure, an increase of 12 percent in the last eight months.
In late December 2015, the WFP said 7.8 million of Yemens 24 million people are in even more dire condition, facing life-threatening rates of acute malnutrition, up by more than 3 million in less than a year. It said 10 of the countrys 22 provinces are in the grip of severe food insecurity at the emergency level, one step short of famine on the agencys 5-level scale of food security. The WFP said in Taiz, with a population of about 250,000, residents have been going hungry for weeks. The UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said recently that basic services in Taiz are scarce, including access to food, water, medicine and fuel. 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. According to a UNICEF report on January 13, 2016 some 3 million children under five years require necessary services to treat or prevent malnutrition.
In Iraq massive population shifts due to violence has made it more difficult for millions of people to access food, medicine and safe drinking water. More than 3 million Iraqis are displaced within the country by violence and instability. Marwa Awad, with the WFP, said that Theyve lost their livelihoods, their jobs, and hunger and the inability to purchase food is a reality in their everyday life. In sum total 8.2 million Iraqis are in need of humanitarian assistance like food, fuel, water, shelter or medicine. Ongoing violence in many of Iraqs provinces that are also home to people who have been uprooted by conflict is of the greatest concern.
In Iraqs Anbar, Ninevah and Salahuddin the price of food has soared by as much as 38 percent 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 US backed Iraqi government forces and IS group fighters. In Ramadi, families who had been held by IS fighters said they survived for days on just rice and flour.
While conflict in Iraq has not led to cases of starvation WFP has seen an increase in cases of malnutrition as people eat less to conserve the little food they have. According to the UN childrens agency, malnutrition is a major threat among millions of refugees there.
Amid such horrifying consequences of the Middle Eastern wars and conflicts that started since the United States (US) President Barack Obamas speech on 4 June 2009 from the Major Reception Hall at Cairo University in Egypt, the US now vows to counter IS in Libya. The US wants to tackle the IS group beyond Iraq and Syria if necessary, as it signaled an increased focus on Libya. The US emphasized that it will continue to counter IS terrorist plotters in any country where it is necessary.
The US President directed his national security team to continue efforts to strengthen governance and support ongoing counterterrorism efforts in Libya and other countries where IS has sought to establish a presence. Libya has been in political turmoil and rocked by violence since the ouster of Moamer Kadhafi in 2011. It now has two conflicting governments and parliaments, with the US recognized authorities based in the eastern city of Tobruk and a militia-backed authority in Tripoli.
All this means farther escalation and continuation of the conflicts and furtherance of the sufferings of the Middle Eastern people and thus the power moguls have thrown the people of the region into hunger and death trap.
The writer is a retired professor of economics
