Refugees starving to death in Syria’s Yarmouk camp

February 28, 2014 | By hromedia | Reply More

Feb 28, – The total number of Palestinians in the camp was approximately 400,000 (registered&unregistered) three years ago, but since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, that number has fallen to 20,000.

The Al-Yarmouk “Palestinian refugee camp” in southern Damascus, Syria, has been on the world’s agenda for a while due to starvation and deaths. The camp has been serving Palestinian refugees since 1957.

The Yarmouk camp has been under an ongoing siege by the Syrian army for approximately three years. The camp is important not only for its large antebellum population of more than 148,500 registered refugees, but also for the political tendencies of camp residents: Palestinian refugees in Yarmouk mostly support the opposition.

That political preference made them an open and quite easy target for Assad. Today, these people in the camp have come to a dead end because of the clashes and deep infighting between various armed—and radical—groups in Syria.

Under those complex military conditions the humanitarian crisis is getting more inextricable as time passes. Yarmouk is not a formal camp with tents or containers, but more big and crowded collection of derelict buildings.

Palestinian families have been located in this “camp” for approximately 60 years. They all struggle to live under very harsh conditions including malnutrition, social and psychological problems like social exclusion, serious problems like drug addiction and chronic health diseases, and a lack of sanitation, health services, and education.

According to the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) before the Syrian civil war the major problems in Yarmouk were high rates of drug addiction, domestic violence, early marriage, overcrowded households, increasing child labor, and a high rate of school dropouts;

it also notes that the living conditions in Yarmouk were far better than the 11 other Palestinian refugee camps in Syria. But now, those people are not dealing with the aforementioned “secondary” problems, they’re just trying to survive the harsh and deadly conditions in Yarmouk. Hardly a day passes without a devastating photo or news report from there. The last one showed a flood of people seeking aid among heavily bombed-out buildings.

Day by day, Yarmouk is tumbling down the cliff—and not alone; it plunges along with the conscience of humanity. It’s neither a camp nor a neighborhood for Palestinian refugees anymore, it’s a great death trap for thousands of innocents who got stuck in one of the most violent clashes of the 21st century.

Press journalist for HRO media – Khizer Hayat, contributed to this report.