UN: 1 million under siege in Syria

The UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien says the number of Syrians living in besieged areas has more than doubled in the past year to nearly 1 million people.

He accuses the government of isolating, starving, bombing and denying medical attention and humanitarian aid to people in opposition areas “in order to force them to submit or flee.”

He says the number of besieged people rose from 393,700 to 974,080 people. Most of the besieged areas are surrounded by government troops.

O’Brien told the UN Security Council on Monday that “it is a deliberate tactic of cruelty to compound a people’s suffering for political, military and in some cases economic gain, to destroy and defeat a civilian population who cannot fight back.”

He strongly criticized President Bashar Assad’s government for its failure to defend all Syrians — even those who oppose him — and for invoking national sovereignty “to bomb its own people.”

— AP