PALESTINIAN REFUGEE DIED OF STARVATION IN YARMOUK CAMP

Damascus, 13 Jumadil Awwal 1435/14 March 2014 (MINA) – A Palestinian refugee in Syria died on Thursday due to the continued siege imposed on the Palestinian refugee camps.

“Refugee Hosni Hassan, 54, died due to the poor nutrition and the absence of medical care, in light of the blockade imposed on the refugee camps,” The Working Group for the Palestinians in Syria said in a statement reported by Palestinian Information Center (PIC) and quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).

Meanwhile, the regular army and groups of the Popular Front – the General Command -have continued to besiege the Yarmouk camp, south of Damascus, for the 8th month unabated, preventing the entry of food and medical stuffs.

For his part, UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said that “there is a state of insecurity and the UNRWA has been unable to provide humanitarian assistance, including medical aid and food, for about ten days.”

An official in the Palestinian Red Crescent in the Yarmouk camp warned a few days ago “that the camp is witnessing a serious health disaster.”

Previously, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees spoke Tuesday of the “shocking” conditions he had seen inside a Syrian camp which has been under siege and bombardment for months.

UNRWA chief Filippo Grandi called for sustained access for aid deliveries to some 18,000 Palestinians who have been trapped under fire in the Yarmouk camp, in south Damascus, with dwindling food supplies.

“It’s like the appearance of ghosts,” he said of the sight of hundreds of Palestinians flooding toward an aid distribution point at the camp, when he was in the Syrian capital last February.

They “have been trapped in there not only without food, medicines, clean water — all the basics — but also probably completely subjected to fear because there was fierce fighting.”

He said the part of the camp he had been able to enter was “like a ghost town”.

“The devastation is unbelievable. There is not one single building that I have seen that is not an empty shell by now.”

But he said the condition of the camp’s remaining residents “is more shocking even”.

“They can hardly speak,” he said.

“I tried to speak to many of them, and they all tell the same stories of complete deprivation.”

UNRWA has been urging humanitarian access to Yarmouk for months, warning of the dire circumstances in the camp that once housed some 160,000 Palestinians as well as many Syrians. (T/P03/E01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)