ERBIL Kurdistan Region – Aid has reached the besieged town of Madaya and the other surrounding areas for the first time in almost six months, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Madaya and other nearby towns, near the Syrian capital Damascus, are home to 60,000 people, who now have received food, medical supplies and hygiene kits. Due to a deadly attack on a convoy transferring aid to the besieged rebel-held city of Aleppo last week the UN suspended aid deliveries across Syria for 48 hours, the Red Cross also temporarily suspended aid delivers, some of which were destined for Madaya. Russia, who is supporting Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and the US, who is supporting the opposition groups, have accused one another for the collapse of the most recent ceasefire. In cooperation with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delivered this latest aid deliveries and announced that 53 trucks reached Madaya and Zabadani on Sunday. Madaya alone has an estimated 40,000 residents whom are facing a meningitis epidemic, according to Save the Children. "There is almost never meat and almost never any kind of fresh fruit or vegetables. We have heard of children who were 4 or 5 years old who saw pictures of an apple and didn't know what it was because they had never seen one in their memory," Misty Buswell, Save the Children's regional advocacy director for the Middle East, said in an interview with ABC News. According to the United Nations, an estimated 13.5 million people in Syria, including 6 million children, are in serious need of humanitarian assistance. 5.47 million of whom are in hard-to-reach areas which the regime has subjected to sieges.
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