Syria's starving hordes: In a biblical picture of suffering, crowd stretching for as far as the eye can see gathers amid the rubble of Damascus for UN food hand-outs
- Yarmouk, the Palestinian area of Damascus has been sealed to the outside world on and off since July
- These photographs show the first food parcel arrival in Yarmouk for months, hundreds lining in the streets
- Yarmouk may yet again cut off from humanitarian aid following clashes in Syria's capital, UN reports
- Today, 175 rebel and foreign fighters were killed in a Syrian army ambush near Damascus
By Sara Malm
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Hundreds of men, women and children fight to get to the front of the queue as a refugee camp in Damascus receives food parcels after being cut off for months.
Today the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) called on rebel forces and Al-Assad’s troops alike to allow ‘safe and unhindered humanitarian access’ to thousands of civilians in Yarmouk, a Palestinian district in the Syrian capital.
Yarmouk has seen some of the worst fighting in the capital, leading to severe food shortages and widespread hunger.
Hour of need: Residents of Syria's besieged
Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp, south of Damascus, crowding a destroyed
street during a food distribution led by the UN agency
Never ending plight: The 'Yarmouk Camp' is a
district of Damascus populated by more than 112,000 Palestinian
refugees, who are now starving to death
Desperate need: A sick young woman is queuing up for a food parcel and medical assistance alongside her family in Yarmouk
UNWRA chief Chris Gunnes spoke today
after a rare visit to Yarmouk on Monday where relief agencies have found
it particularly difficult to provide food and medical assistance.
The
Yarmouk Camp is a 0.8sq.mi. district of Damascus populated by more than
112,000 Palestinian refugees, who are mainly cut off from any foreign
help.
Yarmouk
Camp has been sealed since July 2013, resulting in acute and widespread
deprivation, including severe malnutrition, while civilian residents
are constantly exposed to the threat of death, injuries and trauma of
the armed conflict.
The UN was given access to the camp by the Syrian authorities late January, which is when the photograph was taken.
However,
following clashes in northern Yarmouk earlier this month, UNRWA said
distribution of food parcels and medical supplies may be suspended yet
again.
Christopher Gunness,
from UNRWA, said: ‘It is impossible not to be touched by the
apocalyptic scenes emerging from the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk
in Damascus, besieged and cut off for months.
Long wait: Children await UN food parcels in
Yarmouk, Damascus during a relief operation led by the UN agency for
Palestinian refugees UNRWA
Any help will do: The Palestinian district of
Damascus has been sealed on and off since July last year and has been
subjected to heavy fighting during the war in Syria
Saviours: Staff from the UN agency for
Palestinian refugees UNRWA has resumed distribution of desperately
needed food and medicine
Helping hands: Sick and starving Palestinian residents hope to get a spot on ambulances provided by UNRWA
‘The
images are at once epic and personal. Row upon row of gaunt faces,
serried ranks of grimy, raged figures; the delicate, hunger-ravaged
features of children waiting in line for an UNRWA food parcel; the face
of a mother creased in grief for a deceased child; tears of joy as a
father is reunited with a long-lost daughter.
'These are the vignettes of
inhumanity that have become the regular fare of nightly news bulletins.
They are UNRWA's daily reality.’
The
reports of humanitarian crisis came as more than 175 rebels and foreign
fighters, including ‘Saudis, Qataris and Chechens,’ were killed
Wednesday in a Syrian army ambush near Damascus, state news agency SANA
reported.
It said an army
unit ‘spotted Al-Nusra Front (jihadist) and Liwa al-Islam (Islamist)
terrorists’ near Damascus, and ‘killed 175 of them and wounded several
others.’
Yesterday
the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres warned that
Syrians could soon overtake Afghans as the world's biggest refugee
population.
Hardship: The UN has warned that Syrians could
soon overtake Afghans as the world's biggest refugee population,
expecting to break the four million barrier by the end of 2014
Starving: During a brief period of access
between late January and last week, over 7,700 food baskets were been
distributed and 3,400 people with medical conditions were evacuated from
Yarmouk
No aid: Following months of starvation and
battle, Palestinian residents wait for a United Nations aid ambulance in
Yarmouk, Damascus
The organisation is predicting that the number of displaced Syrians will pass four million by the end of 2014.
Opposition
activists say more than 140,000 people have died in the conflict, which
enters its fourth year next month. The U.N. says 9.3 million Syrians
are in need of humanitarian assistance.The number of Afghan refugees was
2.6 million at the end of 2012, UNHCR says.
Syrians,
with nearly 2.5 million registered as refugees, should overtake that
long before the end of the year. About one-half of the refugees are
children.
‘It breaks my
heart to see this nation that for decades welcomed refugees from other
countries ripped apart and forced into exile itself,’ Guterres told the
U.N. General Assembly. Just five years ago, Syria hosted the world's
second-largest number of refugees, he said.
Syria's neighbors now plead for assistance as hundreds or thousands of people flee into their countries every day.
The
number of Syrian refugees now registered in far smaller Lebanon, for
example, is the equivalent of having 71 million of them registered in
the United States or almost 15 million in France, Guterres said.
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