The horrors of Madaya are far from over
As aid convoys entered the besieged Syrian city of Madaya, the horrors of “walking skeletons” earned the Assad regime further, justified international condemnation. This follows its direct attacks against civilians, the use of chemical weapons, and the indiscriminate use of barrel bombs.
The atrocities of Islamic State and the less visible war crimes of the more “palatable” anti-Assad forces add to the savage, pitiless character of this war, which is racking up deaths – now over a quarter of a million – like an abstract statistic. These new horrors, however, of emaciated, bulge-eyed children, of people being forced to eat their own pets, has further wrenched at audiences around the world as is, at least in part, their intent.
Madaya, a former resort town 40 kilometres north-west of Damascus, had not received food since October. Its population of more than 30,000 did, however, receive an influx of around 10,000 or so refugees from nearby barrel-bombed Zabadani. This immediately made more dire its already critical situation.
Yet Madaya is not alone. The towns of Foua and Kefraya are also being besieged, if in their case by anti-Assad forces. Both are now also receiving food aid. But both sides, too, have also either refused or not honoured agreements to allow humanitarian relief into besieged towns.
No-one in this war, it seems, has a monopoly on the use of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Increasingly, the war’s defining quality appears to be more a capacity for such tactics; if it can be used, starvation included, it is.
In an age in which the world is supposed to have rules of warfare, starving a people into submission is illegal. Yet peoples fighting for what they reasonably believe to be their very existence care little for “rules”. In that there might be some form of possible punishment, that is only possible if one survives, in which case it is a matter to be worried about on another day.
In an age, too, in which the ravages of war are seen globally in more or less real time, there is international distress. Public distress can lead to, and sometimes rationalises, calls for action.
As the key backer of the Assad regime, Russia has deeply criticised the “walking skeletons of Madaya” narrative, accurate though it might be. It claims, without independent verification, that anti-Assad fighters occupying the town have seized the food supplies, selling them to starving locals at exorbitant prices. It also says the narrative is being used as a pretext for further international intervention in the Syrian war.
Russia and the Assad regime believe the implied threat of greater intervention is in turn being used to leverage warring parties to the negotiating table. If countries with anti-Assad proxies wanted to force the Assad regime to negotiations under threat of justification for further intervention, then the imagery of Madaya appears to be providing it.
Yet there remains legitimate reason, under international law, for intervention. This could be to carve a swathe through the Hezbollah fighters around Madaya to allow further food aid, or to extend the military commitment of states wanting to see an end to Assad’s regime.
The invocation of such “law” can, however, only be verified by the UN Security Council (UNSC), in which Russia retains the power of veto. For Russia to say “yes”, it will have a long list of unpalatable conditions.
The alternative to a UNSC resolution appears to be greater unilateral military involvement. This will more deeply commit the US and Russia, their allies and, in Syria, their proxies. There will be more atrocities, more Madayas.
The siege of Madaya is a near-unimaginable horror. The sight of food aid relieving starving people, in Madaya and elsewhere, has given some small comfort.
But, without further compromise around what an outcome to the Syrian War might look like, such comfort could vanish as easily as a mirage in the desert.