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More than 1,000 food parcels were delivered to the besieged Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, a UN spokesperson said on Thursday.
“This is the first aid to enter the camp since 21 January, when the Agency had distributed 138 food parcels,” Farhan Haq, the acting UN Deputy Spokesman, said of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and its urgent efforts to assist more than 20,000 food-deprived people.
The camp, which has over the decades evolved into a town housing at least 150,000 Palestinians and hundreds of thousands of Syrians, has been caught in the crossfire of the bloody Syrian Civil War.
As rebel groups aiming to overthrow the government of Bashar Al-Assad moved into Yarmouk, most of the refugees left to neighbouring Lebanon and other countries such as Iraq, Turkey, and Jordan.
The Syrian Army and its allies in the Lebanese Hezbollah group have since June laid siege to the city, charging that rebel fighters have been hiding among the refugees there.
In the past several weeks, food and water supplies have run out, forcing many of the 20,000 residents, including some 18,000 Palestinians, to kill and eat animals.
Many children died due to severe shortages of powder milk, polio vaccines and food.
The Damascus government began allowing relief convoys to enter the camp on January 18, a few days after the Geneva-2 Peace Summit.
“The Agency said that it is encouraged by the delivery of this aid and the cooperation of the parties on the ground,” Haq said.
Source: Agencies
