Food aid reaches Syria's starving town of Darayya

For the first time since 2012, food aid reached starving residents in the Syrian town of Darayya, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent said.

Trucks carrying medicine, flour and a month's worth of food arrived Darayya on Thursday, the humanitarian organization said in statements posted on its social media accounts.

Darayya is a rebel-held suburb of Syria's capital Damascus that has been cut off by President Bashar Assad's government.

Thursday's deliveries were made by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent with help from the United Nations.

The operation “proceeded smoothly” and was finished before dawn Friday, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.

“This delivery was successful but the U.N. continues to call for unconditional, unimpeded, and sustained humanitarian access to all people in need” throughout Syria, it said, the Associated Press reported.

Haitham Gazal, 27, director of the aid office of the local council, said the 480 food baskets that arrived were enough for 2,400 people for a month.

“We will open all the food baskets and redistribute the food to everyone, but in this case it will be enough for no more than 20 days,” he said.

Gazal said about 400 health and hygiene baskets containing items including underwear, soap, towels, and razor blades were also sent to Darayya.

"We still need fuel for the electricity generators in the hospital and for the water generator to extract water from the wells, but we didn’t receive any," he added.

The first U.N. aid convoy to enter the area arrived last week, but it brought no food supplies — only medicine and baby food.

Darayya, which had a population of 80,000 before the start of Syria's five-year-old conflict, now has about 8,000 people, according to U.N. estimates.