UN warns of humanitarian crisis in Syria
The United Nations warned on Monday of growing humanitarian crisis in Syria after Islamic State took control over the Yarmouk camp for displaced persons, in Southern Damascus, from rival groups.
“The situation has been turned upside down. Currently, it’s simply too dangerous to access Yarmouk,” said Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner-General at the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), as he briefed the press at UN Headquarters in New York via video-link
There were 18,000 Palestinian refugees and Syrian civilians trapped in the refugee camp, in conditions which were described by the UN as “beyond inhumane". The organisation also said the camp had not received drinking water or food.
The Palestinian UN ambassador, Riyad Mansour, said that saving the refugees was his government’s main priority, and appealed to member nations to relocate the refugees elsewhere in Syria or abroad.