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Monday 15 Feb 2016 - 10:48 Makkah mean time-6-5-1437
Yarmouk refugee camp, Syria (UNRWA photo)
Damascus (IINA) – The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has been able to deliver urgently needed humanitarian supplies to the civilian residents of the besieged refugee camp of Yarmouk, on the outskirts of Damascus, for the first time in nine months.
“Although we did not enter the camp itself, we were able to reach the nearby area of Yalda, where 900 families from Yarmouk, Yalda and the neighboring areas of Babila and Beit Saham were provided with a 35 kilogram food parcel,” UN News Center reported quoting Chris Gunness, spokesperson for UNRWA.
In a press statement on Saturday, he noted that the camp had been taken over by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group on April 1 last year. He stressed that humanitarian needs remain acute since the last UNRWA distribution of some humanitarian assistance in June 2015.
“There are clear indications that disease is on the rise, particularly among the most vulnerable such as children. There is an acute lack of medicines to treat them,” Gunness explained.
UNRWA plans to continue distribution operations, aimed to provide 6,000 families with food parcels by the end of the week. The following week, the agency hopes to distribute non-food items including winter blankets, hygiene kits, water purification tablets and establish mobile health points, he said.
Gunness went on to stress that as armed violence continues to threaten the lives and safety of Palestine refugees throughout Syria, the agency appeals to donors for an increase in their support to the UNRWA Syria Emergency Appeal. More than 95 percent of Palestine refugees now rely on UNRWA to meet their daily needs of food, water and healthcare.
AB/IINA
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