Second aid delivery to besieged central Syria town: Red Cross

Relief groups today began their second major aid delivery in a week to tens of thousands of besieged people in central Syria, a Red Cross spokesman said.
Thirty-five aid trucks would be delivered to Rastan and surrounding rural areas in central Homs province, said International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman Pawel Krzysiek told AFP.
ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent are delivering aid including food parcels, medicine, diapers and 100 delivery kits for pregnant women.
Rastan and nearby villages are home to 120,000 people, half of whom had fled fighting in neighbouring Hama province.
Last Thursday, aid groups sent 65 trucks into the town in the largest aid delivery yet in Syria.

More than four million people live in besieged or hard-to-reach areas with little or no access to food or medicines.

Rebel groups seized Rastan and the vast agricultural land around in 2012.
Krzysiek said residents had since received so little aid that they found it hard to believe there would be a second delivery so soon.
"We told them we would be back in the coming days and one of them said, 'Yeah, yeah, that's what people said last time... If you manage to enter again, we'll have a party,'" he told AFP.
Krzysiek said ICRC and Red Crescent workers would follow-up on health assessments and repairs to the heavily-strained water infrastructure in the town.

The ICRC had noted several cases of malnutrition, but the situation was not as "intense" as other besieged towns like Madaya, near Damascus.
Madaya became infamous in late 2015 after dozens died of starvation in the town, which is besieged by pro-government forces.
"The irrigation areas and farmlands are really the front lines" in Rastan, Krzysiek said.
"It's too dangerous to do large-scale cultivation and even if you manage, you cannot sell it."
Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with anti-government protests but has spiralled into a complex, multi-front war.
Both government forces and armed rebel groups are accused of war crimes, including the besiegement of civilians.

The United Nations has criticised regime forces for denying access for aid groups to enter besieged areas.