UN official: Situation at Palestinian refugee camp in Syria 'beyond inhumane'

[Luiz 4,253]

 

 

Shelling and sporadic clashes struck a Palestinian refugee campunder attack by Islamic extremists in the Syrian capital Monday, a situation that a UN official described as "beyond inhumane."

Hatem al-Dimashqi, an activist based in an area just south of Damascus, said the Yarmouk camp was under attack Monday. Both Al-Dimashqi and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said Syrian government's air force has dropped several barrel bombs on the camp since Sunday.

Islamic State militants stormed the camp Wednesday, marking the extremist group's deepest foray yet into Damascus. Palestinian officials and Syrian activists said they were working with rivals from the Al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front. The two groups have fought bloody battles against each other in other parts of Syria, but appear to be cooperating in the attack on Yarmouk.

Nusra said in a statement it is taking a neutral stance in the camp.

Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, told The Associated Press in Barcelona late Sunday that the agency has not been able to send any food nor any convoys into the camp since the fighting started.

"That means that there is no food, there is no water and there is very little medicine," he said. "The situation in the camp is beyond inhumane. People are holed up in their houses, there is fighting going on in the streets. There are reports of ... bombardments. This has to stop and civilians must be evacuated."

He said 93 people have been evacuated from the camp so far.

The United Nations says around 18,000 civilians, including a large number of children, are trapped in Yarmouk. The camp has been under government siege for nearly two years, leading to starvation and illnesses. The camp also has witnessed several rounds of ferocious and deadly fighting between government forces and militants.

Gunness said the camp has been under siege for nearly two years, adding that "things were bad and things got worse when the fighting engulfed the camp."

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.650695 

[Didymus 34,380]

18,000 Two years

Unimaginable. I wish there were ways to get civilians out of these places without interfering in the conflict.

[YCHofficial 5,293]

aww  

[Dolev 867]

Can it stop already?! why are they killing each other at all?

[lego 44,165]

Chris Gunness is such an amazing human being. 

Imagine to live in  this kind of place.

 

 

damn you assad and all the terrorists.

 

 

[lego 44,165]

This was last year

STATEMENT BY THE INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN COMMUNITY

 

How much longer must children suffer from hunger? How much longer must women die in childbirth for lack of medical care? How much longer must we be barred from the besieged Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus and the many thousands of desperate and vulnerable civilians caught up in Syria’s conflict? How much longer will we allow such unimaginable civilian suffering?

 

We, the international humanitarian community, call on the participants of the Geneva Peace Talks to lift the restrictions on Yarmouk refugee camp and all areas of humanitarian need in Syria.

 

Yarmouk was home to some 160,000 people before the fighting, but much of the camp has been destroyed by the conflict, and today about 18,000 people remain trapped inside, many of them women and children. With reports of malnutrition, people eating animal feed, a severe lack of medical services, and water and electricity almost nonexistent, we fear that time is running out for those trapped in Yarmouk.

 

Please add your voice. We hope to reach 23 million people, one for each member of the Syrian population. Together we can make the world listen.

 

Nothing has changed. Or it did, to worse.