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Air drop food to starving Syrians, UN tells Britain

All options should be on the table to help the starving, humanitarian chief says, as one million Syrians are besieged

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Starving Syrians in the besieged town of Madaya are reduced to eating cats and dogs

The United Nations has given approval to Western countries including Britain to carry out air drops over besieged Syrian towns without regime permission, The Telegraph can disclose.

In a key admission of the UN’s failure to ensure basic supplies despite a security council resolution last month, its senior humanitarian official has written to the government saying “all options need to be on the table”.

“We must be guided by the humanitarian imperative, and acknowledge the failure of negotiations over four years to secure the necessary access to these besieged areas,” wrote Stephen O’Brien, the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs. “My advice would be that all options be considered as we must find a way to break this impasse.”

Stephen O'Brien interview, UN Headquarters, New York, America - 03 Aug 2015

There have been growing calls for Britain to intervene in the wake of scores of deaths from starvation in the Syrian town of Madaya, which is besieged by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president.

The West has been stymied in its concern about starving Syrians suffering in the civil war, mostly in regime sieges.

According to independent monitors, between one to two million people are living in besieged areas across the country.

The British Government has previously ruled out air drops and said it is the job of the UN to decide the nature of any operations undertaken to assist Syrian civilians.

MPs have argued that flying aid in is too dangerous. The air space is controlled by the regime, which has sophisticated Russian air defence systems.

Dozens die of starvation in Damascus

However, Mr O’Brien’s letter makes clear that the International Development Secretary, Justine Greening, had asked for his views on "possible use of airdrops in the Syria context".

He writes: "Given the appalling level of need in Syria and our collective responsibility to act, I believe we have reached a moment where all options need to be on the table."

He warns that any British led operations should comply both with international humanitarian law and "key principles of impartiality."

However, in a key point, he refers to previous air drops “undertaken by various military actors, including the US in the context of Iraq and Afghanistan, without the participation of the UN or humanitarian actors”.

He says that in such cases “relevant UN guidelines would not apply”. Given that those guidelines say that aid has to be delivered with the agreement of the state concerned - in this case Syria - the letter suggests Britain can conduct drops without permission from Damascus.

Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, and Jo Cox, a Labour MP, had written to David Cameron, the Prime Minister, urging him to “strongly consider air dropping aid to those communities at risk of starvation”.

Besieged by regime forces and Hizbollah since July, Madaya’s 40,000 residents have been reduced to eating boiled strawberry leaves.

Photographs taken in the town show the shrivelled corpses of old men and pinched faces of starving infants. At least 50 people are said to have died since the siege came down last July, and five since the UN delivered aid supplies last week.

Mr O’Brien’s reply said: "From a technical view point, air drops can be useful as a last resort to deliver aid quickly, particularly in areas that are subject to active ground conflict and/or where infrastructure is poor or absent."

Syrian children wearing orange jumpsuits stand inside a cage on February 15, 2015 placed near the debris of a building destroyed in bombardment by Syrian government forces on the rebel-held Damascus subrb of Douma, during a protest to denounce the continuing killing of civilians in the Syrian conflict

Ms Cox, a former policy head at Oxfam, said she welcomed the development. “We know that Assad has the power to control upwards of 90 per cent of besieged communities. In the event that the UN doesn’t negotiate sustained ongoing access, aid drops should be on the table,” she said.

“NGOs are saying to me that they just can’t get in - the Syrian government is putting up hurdle after hurdle so it can continue its collective punishment.”

A spokesman for the International Development department added: “The key thing is getting the support to the people who need it in the most effective way.

"We do not rule anything out, but our current assessment is that aid delivered by road, by people who know the situation on the ground and who can ensure it gets to those who need it most, is more effective.”