Al Waer neighborhood at famine risk as siege continues

Translation by Yusra Ahmed

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Activists have launched campaign calling for lifting the siege on al-Waer neighbourhood, the last  stronghold of revolution  in Homs, because it suffers of severe shortage of food, medicine and water, threatening of humanitarian crisis as the regime have prevented aid convoys from entering the neighbourhood for 3 months which contradicts with the UN-brokered agreement in December 2015, stating that siege of al-Waer should be lifted and food to be allowed inside.

The recent appeals came as a response of news reported by the local coordinations in Homs stating that al-Waer was targeted this Thursday afternoon with heavy cannons and mortar shelling with anticipation of accelerating the military action against the neighbourhood after a land-surface missile hit the ground.  

Local sources confirmed th Zaman Al wasl earlier that the humanitarian situation in al-Waer has been tragic for 3 months following the disabling the UN-mediated agreement.

Abu Faisal, an activist and a member of  civil gathering,  told Zaman al-Wasl that all shops in the city have become completely empty as nothing is left in the market apart from detergents, parsley and watercress which are produced in the neighbourhood.  

Abu Faisal indicated that bread, the essential food has not entered al-Waer since March 12, 2016, but patient women prepare it at home with primary methods, from wheat, rice, pasta, and dried beans, then they bake it using wood and plastic residuals, as the price of one kilogram of flour has reached to 2000  S.P if found..

Last Monday, May 9,  pro-regime Shiite militias had targeted several pro-regime areas adjacent to al-Waer neighbourhood claiming that rebels who shelled the regime-loyalist areas to make it an excuse to invade al-Waer.

Al-Waer is  joining the list of besieged areas where regime uses hunger as a weapon to pressurise people  in order to accept its conditions.  

The Food and Agriculture Organisation has reported that almost 8 million of Syrian people suffer of hunger.

Hunger has become an effective weapon the Syrian regime uses, where people in besieged areas reach to a state in which they eat dogs an cat, besides eating wild plants, like what happened in Yarmouk camp in Southern Damascus and Madaya town,  next to Lebanese borders.