Opinion: Hunger must not be used as a weapon in Syrian war

The people of Madaya have temporary respite now. They can eat. They can enjoy the small pleasures in life like simply putting sugar in their tea. These are the human consequences of the war in Syria - everyday life has become unendurable.

Over the fortnight, the world has been shocked by the images of starving children we have seen coming out of the city of Madaya. The conflict in Syria has raged for almost five years now and created a humanitarian crisis and a scale of refugees not seen since the Second World War. Although we have seen a relentless spate of violent deaths and appalling atrocities during the conflict, we are still shocked by these images of starvation. For many of us, they serve to remind us of images of WW2, of the Holocaust and the concentration camps, when modern humanity reached its nadir.

News coverage of the war generally focuses on the violence but, in Syria, death comes in many forms - it is not always from the bullet or the bomb. Hunger is a particularly effective weapon of war. Areas of Syria have been under siege for months, resulting in starvation and the spread of disease and death.

Since the founding of Concern in 1968, fighting global hunger has been at the core of the organisation's work. Indeed, the original impetus for starting the organisation was to provide emergency food assistance to the starving population of Biafra, a region of Nigeria that was fighting to secede in 1968 and that was surrounded, at the time, by government forces attempting to starve them into submission. 48 years later, the parallels with modern day Syria are all too evident. Conflict and hunger are inextricably linked.

Conflict is the antithesis of development. It separates families from each other and from their livelihoods; from their land and access to markets. It sends economic growth into reverse, forcing people out of their jobs and normal lives and into exile and poverty. It diverts resources into the hands of armies and militias, who frequently deprive populations of access to food as a deliberate tactic.

Fortunately, global hunger has decreased significantly in recent years. The 2015 Global Hunger Index, co-published by Concern, shows that levels of hunger in developing countries have fallen by 27 per cent since the year 2000. Although hunger remains alarmingly high in a number countries, gone are the days of devastating famines on the scale of those experienced in Ethiopia during the 1980s. Although climate change and population growth present very serious food security challenges, there is a positive trajectory in terms of nutrition and mortality.

Except in countries that are affected by conflict.

In the last decade, there has been an alarming upsurge in conflict across the globe, particularly protracted, often civil conflict. This has resulted in mass displacement - in excess of 60 million people are currently displaced, the highest number ever recorded.

Like other humanitarian agencies, we have repeatedly called for increased diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis. It is the only way the war in Syria will end. We cannot allow 2016 to come and go without immediately accelerating efforts to forge a comprehensive diplomatic solution. But while we remain hopeful, we cannot ignore the suffering of those caught up in the conflict.

The situation in Madaya is atrocious, but our outrage has only really come with the emergence of the scandalous footage of starvation.

Aid supplies into the city have been restricted since October and this is not an isolated situation. Restricting humanitarian access has become all too routine in the region.

In northern Syria, where Concern works, humanitarian access is regularly restricted. The knock on effect of this disrupted access is that humanitarian agencies cannot sustain consistent support essential for ordinary Syrians who have remained in Syria, and are bravely trying to maintain some semblance of normal everyday life. The war has decimated the traditional agricultural and market productivity of the region, leaving few options for remaining residents trying to earn any money,

That is what makes it essential that robust efforts at livelihood support can be made in 2016, as opposed to just humanitarian aid.

Syria is a catastrophe for the people who have had to flee, for those who remain in the wreckage of their once proud nation, and for those who have already paid the ultimate price. The conflict has spiralled out far beyond its borders and, after five years, it makes a mockery of our efforts at international diplomacy.

In all of this, they have lost sight of the ordinary civilians in Syria. Those who are suffering every day. And that’s what the conflict in Syria is really about - desperation.

It is about the mother who cannot feed her children because she has no access to food, let alone sugar for her tea, and the father who sits in the room with her, and seethes with rage at the suffering his family are enduring.

That is why we must demand access to Madaya, and every other area of Syria that is under siege.

Beyond our humanitarian imperative to do so, it is the most effective way of showing ordinary Syrians that we, and the West more broadly, are not only interested in bombing them from the skies.

Dominic MacSorley is CEO of Concern