Assistance provided to the residents of Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus is insufficient and the 7,500 food baskets which have been distributed since January are a “mere drop in the ocean”, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned.
On Wednesday, the agency aired a video showing thousands of the besieged camp residents with their faces bearing signs of hunger and fatigue while waiting in a street amid destroyed buildings for UNRWA assistance. The agency has distributed 450 food parcels which increases the number of packages distributed since January to 7,493 parcels. According to UNRWA; the food parcel suffices a family of five to eight members for a period of ten days.
Nearly 18,000 Palestinians lived in the refugee camp but the number doubled when Syrians fled the conflict that has been raging for nearly three years and sought refuge in the camp. The agency says that “a simple mathematical equation shows the harsh reality and the suffering of the camp’s population.”
The camp has turned into rubble during the fighting between regime forces and opposition fighters who recently pulled out of the camp, under an agreement with Palestinian factions.
The Syrian regime imposes tight security blockades on the camp despite an agreement to lift the siege and allow the Palestinian forces to take over security. Nearly a hundred people have starved to death in the camp since October 2013 while those remaining live in appalling conditions.
On Wednesday UNRWA was able to use its infrastructure in the camp for the first time since December 2012, describing the move as “encouraging”. UNRWA has reiterated, in recent months, warnings of a growing humanitarian crisis in the Yarmouk refugee camp which led to the death of dozens from hunger and lack of medicines
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