Red Cross Aid Convoy Reached Sieged Syrian Town

With negotiations finally making progress, a Red Cross aid convoy arrived today in the sieged Syrian town of Madaya, not far from the Lebanon border, and began the distribution of badly needed humanitarian aid to the population.

Rebel-held Madaya has been the source of a lot of concern lately over mass starvation, though the scope of the crisis is unclear, as many of the images of the situation turned out to be faked, recycled images from previous crises across Syria.

Madaya is a town of about 40,000, though how many remain in unclear. The deal to allow humanitarian aid into the town also obliged al-Qaeda to allow aid into a pair of Shi’ite villages in the Idlib Province. Both of those villages were largely evacuated in recent months, however, so it’s not clear how many are left there either.

The Red Cross said the current aid delivery is likely to continue through the night, and that more shipments would follow, meaning the overall operation to relieve the locals would last several days.