UNRWA chief heads to Syria on 'urgent' Yarmouk mission

Head of UN agency for Palestinian refugees set to launch major bid to resolve humanitarian crisis in Damascus district.

 

Local activists say regime forces have drastically stepped up their indiscriminate shelling of Yarmouk since ISIL attacked Palestinian fighters there [AFP]

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees is set to visit Syria to start an "urgent mission" aimed at alleviating the humanitarian crisis in the southern Damascus district of Yarmouk that has been devastated by increased conflict, his organisation has said.
Pierre Krahenbuhl, who heads the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, will on Saturday discuss the situation in Yarmouk - inhabited mainly by Palestinian refugees - and meet with displaced refugees.
The visit is "prompted by UNRWA's deepening concerns for the safety and protection of some 18,000 Palestinian and Syrian civilians, including 3,500 children" remaining in the Yarmouk camp, the agency said in a statement.
"Yarmouk remains under the control of armed groups, and civilian lives continue to be threatened by the effects of the armed conflict in the area," it said.
On April 1, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant launched an assault on the Palestinian armed group Bait al-Maqdis, which is one of numerous factions that share control of the district.
After the government claimed that ISIL took over most of the camp - which has been denied by local activists - regime forces stepped up their shelling of the district, further worsening the area's humanitarian crisis.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, reported on Thursday that since April 4, government helicopters dropped 36 barrel bombs, which are highly indiscrimate and destructive explosives, on Yarmouk.
Krahenbuhl, who will meet displaced refugees on Sunday in a school near the camp, will discuss "with the government of Syria... peaceful approaches to addressing the humanitarian consequences of the situation in Yarmouk".
He will also meet with deputy special envoy Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, who was sent by UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday to Damascus.
Since 2012, Yarmouk has seen ongoing clashes between regime forces and Syrian rebels, with Palestinian factions divided and fighting on both sides.
The sprawling district, once home to 160,000 Palestinians as well as Syrians, has endured a suffocating army siege since 2013.