350 Palestinian refugees flee Syria's Yarmouk refugee camp to Turkey

As many as 350 Palestinians have fled from Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp, located in southern Damascus, to Turkey after airstrikes by the Syrian regime’s warplanes destroyed their homes, Anadolu news agency reported.

Bassam Sharih, one of the Palestinian refugees, said they set up a camp for themselves near the Öncüpınar border crossing with Syria, which is located north of Aleppo.

“We spent difficult days as we moved from Damascus to Aleppo. May God bless Turkey. May peace prevail and may we return back to our home,” Sharih told journalists.

Another Palestinian refugee, Abu Mohammed, described the situation in Aleppo as unstable and said that battles are still ongoing in the area. “I lost one of my sons in one of the battles. Today, we have ended up here in the tents.”

Yarmouk refugee camp was once home to more than 150,000 Palestinians, making it the largest camp in Syria. However, the Syrian uprising displaced most of the population. When armed opposition fighters took hold of parts of the camp in 2012, regime forces besieged the remaining residents, resulting in a humanitarian crisis.