Food dispatched to starving Syrian town

An aid convoy is about to enter the besieged rebel-held Syrian town of Madaya with enough food to last 40,000 people for a month, the UN says, reports BBC.

Residents have been trapped there for six months by a government blockade and have received no aid since October.

The UN says it has received credible reports of people dying of starvation.

Aid will also be delivered to two villages besieged by rebel forces in the northern province of Idlib under a deal between the warring parties.

The situation in Foah and Kefraya is also said to be extremely dire, with an estimated 20,000 people trapped there since March.

More than 60 lorries operated by the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Syrian Red Crescent, and the World Food Programme left Damascus for Madaya, Foah and Kefraya on Monday morning.

They were carrying basic food items - including rice, vegetable oil, flour, sugar and salt - as well as water, infant formula, blankets, medicines and surgical supplies.

At 16:30 local time (14:30 GMT), the UN`s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) posted on Twitter a photo of the convoy outside Madaya, saying it was "about to enter" the town.