250,000 Syrian children ‘wait for their turn to die’, says leading charity

Children trapped in towns and cities across Syria have become so terrified and impoverished by the war they now “wait for their turn to be killed”, Save The Children has warned. A report by the charity estimates that 250,000 children are struggling to get access to electricity along with the food and medicine they need to survive. Sieges staged by warring groups, where snipers try to shoot anyone leaving an area, has meant young people are losing their lives “just a few kilometres from warehouses piled high with aid”.

They and their families are cut off from the outside world, surrounded by warring groups that illegally use siege against civilians as a weapon of war - preventing food, medicine, fuel and other vital supplies from entering and stopping people from fleeing.

Save the Children

Officials on the ground described children eating animal feed and boiled leaves as they took shelter from airstrikes. The endemic levels of malnutrition have left children “wandering around in a daze from hunger”. Save The Children’s chief executive, Tanya Steele, has said Syria’s young are “paying the price for the world’s inaction” as the fifth anniversary of the civil war fast approaches next week. One of the 125 adults and children interviewed by the charity compared their plight to living in an “open-air prison” - with women dying in childbirth and babies dying at checkpoints.

Save the Children