News / Syria

Civilians at Syria’s Yarmouk camp highly vulnerable: UN

Tuesday, 19 May 2015 8:01 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 19 May 2015 3:47 PM ]

A man sits inside a demolished building in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital Damascus on April 6, 2015. (© AFP)

The UN has voiced concern over the dire humanitarian crisis in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Syria’s capital, Damascus, saying the civilians are highly vulnerable.

“The vulnerability of civilians in Yarmouk remains of the highest severity,” the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)’s spokesman Christopher Gunness said Monday.

ISIL terrorists with assistance from al-Nusra Takfiris stormed Yarmouk on April 1, capturing a large part of the camp in Damascus. Reports say that nearly 18,000 Palestinians, including 3,500 children, are caught in the ongoing violence there.

“Without access, the most basic humanitarian needs of up to 18,000 Palestinian and Syrian civilians, including 3,500 children, continue to be left unmet,” said the UN official.

According to Gunness, the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians within Yarmouk remains the UN relief agency’s priority.

Men stand in an alleyway of demolished buildings in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital Damascus on April 6, 2015. (© AFP)

He also renewed the UNRWA’s calls for compliance with obligations to protect civilians and the establishment of secure conditions, under which life-saving humanitarian aid can be delivered to the violence-stricken refugees at Yarmouk.

“We cannot continue to leave this besieged community without life-saving support,” Gunness said.

The agency has asked for an immediate injection of USD 30 million for the civilians in Yarmouk.

So far, over 222,000 people have reportedly died in Syria, which has been gripped by deadly violence since March 2011.

Nearly four million Syrians have sought refuge in other countries, and 7.6 million civilians have been internally displaced since the beginning of the crisis.

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