The Wall Street Journal reports: Dozens of emergency-aid workers waited hours this weekend for government permission to evacuate hundreds of children, elderly and the sick from among tens of thousands of residents trapped with little food and medicine in a rebel-held neighborhood here sealed off by regime forces.

A clutch of women, some on stretchers, finally emerged from behind battle-scarred buildings. “Let everyone out. We are eating cat and donkey meat, have mercy on us,” said 45-year-old Qamar Azeema, who collapsed in tears. She and 26 others were allowed to leave the Yarmouk Camp district on Sunday.

Both sides in the conflict have used access to food and medicine as a weapon, but it has been mostly the Syrian government, according to human-rights groups and interviews with more than a dozen aid officials and workers. [Continue reading…]