Geneva, Reuters, March 18, 2016: Some Syrians in the besieged areas of Daraya and Deir Al Zor have been reduced to eating grass because food supplies are cut off, the UN World Food Program said on Friday.

“In the most severe cases, they are enduring entire days without eating, sending children to beg and eating grass/wild vegetation,” a report said.

Deir Al Zor is under siege by IS forces, while Daraya is besieged by government forces and has become a focus of UN efforts to get aid to all of Syria. Syria’s government has not yet granted permission for aid to go to the city.

Households in the two cities were unable to eat more than one meal per day and giving priority to children, said the WFP report, a survey of Syrian food market conditions in February.

Fresh bread was “sporadically available at an extortionate cost” in Daraya, 30 times above the market price in nearby Damascus. Rice was 17 times higher than Damascus prices.

Despite a widespread truce that has lasted almost three weeks, Syria’s government has refused to give permission for UN aid convoys to enter six areas under siege by its forces, including Daraya.

UN humanitarian advisor Jan Egeland said on Thursday that countries backing the Syrian peace talks had given the Syrian government seven days to answer a UN request to deliver aid.

“It is in violation of international law to prevent us from going,” he said, adding that the six areas were no more strategic or symbolic than other areas that had already received aid convoys.

With no hope of getting convoys into Deir Al Zor by road, the UN hopes to do air drops of food. But a first attempt failed because the plane had to fly so high and fast to avoid the threat of surface-to-air missiles, causing the parachutes to fail because of the severe jolt when they opened.

Meanwhile, Syrian rebel factions on Friday condemned a declaration of federalism in Kurdish-controlled regions of northern Syria and vowed to resist it by force, a day after those areas voted to seek autonomy.

A statement from a number of Syrian insurgent groups, some of whom are represented in the main opposition body that is participating in peace talks, said the federalism announcement was a “project to divide” Syria.

Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northern regions voted on Thursday to seek autonomy under a federal system, drawing rebukes from the main opposition’s High Negotiations Committee, the Damascus government, Turkey and Washington.

The rebel statement said this was “exploitation” of the Syrian uprising that began five years ago and descended into civil war, and condemned what it said were attempts by “groups… which took control of parts of Syrian land to establish their racial, nationalist and sectarian entities”.