Photo Gallery Starvation Threatens Cut-Off Syrian Enclaves
A young boy sits alone in a rubble-filled street in the Harasta area of Damascus. What the chemical weapons failed to achieve is now being gradually accomplished by hunger: the annihilation of a city.
Another boy runs for cover after what was reportedly shelling by government forces in the Deir al-Zor district in the north east of the country. The fact that Assad agreed to destroy his stockpiles of chemical weapons is a piece of good news from a war that is not producing any other positive reports. In fact, it's too good, so good that the chemical weapons inspectors were promptly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and it seemed as if the rest of the war had ceased.
Despite the ongoing brutal conflict, some normalcy remains. This child heads off for school in Damascus's Duma neighborhood. In some areas, though, even this is not possible.
Reminders of the civil war raging across Syria are everywhere. Here, motorcyclists stop to talk with a car driver in the suburb of Zamalka with a heavily damaged building in the background.
The starving out of Muadhamiya and other areas is happening without any of Washington's red lines being crossed or any public outcry in other countries -- and even without propaganda efforts to conceal the problem. "Let them starve for a bit, surrender and then be put on trial," a member of the newly-formed paramilitary "Defense Committee" from Assad's Alawite faith told a reporter with the Wall Street Journal in early October. This map shows where children are starving in Damascus.
