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No aid entered for besieged Moadamiya town: local council

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- The local council of Moadamiyet al Sham said no humanitarian aid entered for the besieged town on the outskirts of Damascus as regime forces tighten noose on 45,000 people since 150 days.

The council, in statement issued on Friday, denied regime news of the Red Crescent convoys entry to Moadamiya, demanding the International Community to interfere as famine looms.

In the next-door town of Daraya, rebel fighters and officials in believe regime forces are preparing an assault after they turned back an aid convoy last week.

Daraya, situated close to a large air base and just a few kilometers (miles) from Bashar al-Assad's palace, had seen little violence since a broader cessation of hostilities agreement came into effect at the end of February.

But, with the truce rapidly unraveling across Syria, government forces began shelling the town on Thursday after refusing entry to the first aid convoy it would have ever received.

On Thursday, U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said the United Nations will take the "last resort" option of air drops of humanitarian aid if access to besieged areas in Syria is not improved by June 1.

Without improved aid access and some restoration of Syria's tattered cessation of hostilities, the credibility of the next round of peace talks would be in question, he said.

"We want to bring aid to everyone. If the food cannot be brought by convoys, the alternative is air drops," de Mistura told reporters.

Air drops were "the most expensive, the most complicated, the most dangerous option", he added. "So the air drops are the last resort, but we are getting close to it."

Humanitarian supplies this month have not reached half the 900,000 people the U.N. wanted to supply in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, he said. The target for June is 1.1 million. (With agencies)

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