Syria’s besieged Yarmouk camp gets U.N. aid
UNRWA says it has resumed food distribution in the besieged Palestinian refugee camp after a two-week halt
Humanitarian access was allowed into Syria’s besieged Yarmouk refugee camp on Tuesday after a two-week halt, according to the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA).
UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said food distribution has resumed on Tuesday, according to Agence France-Presse, letting in 465 food parcels in addition to bread and jam, as well as 2,000 doses of polio vaccines and 800 small cartons of baby formula.
The Palestinian refugee camp has been under a tight army siege since July 2013.
Once home for more 170,000 refugees, today the Yarmouk camp hosts some18,000 Palestinian refugees and thousands of Syrians.
A picture from the camp distributed by the United Nations shook the world as it showed thousands of people queuing for food aid.
“Set against the substantial civilian needs and the protracted closure of Yarmouk, the modest supplies we have taken in are not enough,” Gunness said.
“We require secure, substantial and sustained humanitarian access as the Security Council has unanimously requested, and call on all concerned parties to ensure the establishment and maintenance of conditions that facilitate full access to Yarmouk.”
Amnesty International last week said the Syrian army was using starvation as a “weapon of war” in its siege of Yarmouk, where it said nearly 200 people have died since the tightening of the siege, including 128 who starved to death.
It said Yarmouk was the deadliest of several blockades set up of civilian areas across the country, some by the army and some by Syrian rebels.
(With AFP)
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