ERBIL, Kurdistan Region--The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warns of the "extremely dire" humanitarian situation in three besieged villages in Syria. What is interesting about the report is the fact that two of them, the Shiite-majority pro-regime towns of Foah and Kefraya, are under siege from Islamist groups fighting the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad while the other, Madaya, is under siege by Hezbollah and Syrian military forces under Assad's command. In Madaya, which sits just 15 miles to Damascus's northwest, recent reports indicate that desperate residents are starving. One activist who has family in that besieged town told the BBC that, "Citizens are dying. They're eating stuff off the ground. They're eating cats and dogs." Foah and Kefraya have been under siege for months by the Jaish al-Fatah group, a coalition of Islamists against Assad which includes the al-Qaeda offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra. They overran Idlib province in May and have been able to lay siege to those villages, which are situated just 5 miles north of Idlib's provincial capital, since. Those towns were to be evacuated as part of a United Nations-brokered deal which saw the Syrian regime agree to give Nusra fighters they were besieging in the resort town of Zabadani safe passage out of the country if they could evacuate those towns. Some fighters and townspeople were moved but the siege continues on the part of those Islamists. It seems that the regime and Hezbollah have intensified their siege of Madaya in retaliation. The Associated Press also quoted a source which indicates that the price of necessities has skyrocketed with things like crushed wheat selling for as much as $250. The ICRC hopes to deliver aid to all of these besieged towns in the coming days in a frantic effort to alleviate the harsh conditions in them.
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