20,000 Palestinian refugees trapped in Yarmouk refugee camp

The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory for Human Rights (EMOHR) and the Working Group for the Palestinians of Syria (WGPS) have published a visual report about the humanitarian crisis in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in the southern suburbs of Damascus. The camp has been witnessing a significant deterioration in health and humanitarian conditions over the past year.

The Yarmouk camp is the largest refugee camp in Syria, with a population of about 148,000 people.

However, the report shows that about 80 per cent of its population has left the camp since the outbreak of the ongoing clashes that date back to December 2012, when the Syrian opposition seized control of the camp from a Palestinian group loyal to the Syrian regime. Regime forces then responded with a bombing campaign, eventually inflicting a siege upon the population.

The report stresses that about 20,000 Palestinian refugees are currently trapped inside the camp, and that the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees has not been able to deliver any humanitarian aid to those in need inside the camp since last September.

The report said that at the end of December 2013, the number of victims from hunger and the imposed blockade had reached 36 refugees.

In the same context, two Palestinian refugees in the Khan Eshieh camp were killed this afternoon after regime forces shelled the camp. The regime has targeted several Palestinian camps since the start of the almost three-year-long Syrian conflict.

The working group said that the two martyrs fell dead after the refugee camp of Khan Eshieh, located southwest of Damascus, was bombed with two explosive barrels: the first landed in the Awel Elmokhayam area in front of Segad Sayda, and the second landed in the vicinity of Al-Tawh`ed Street, which led to the death of the two victims, as well as the injury of many others.

Source: Pls48