Six Yarmouk residents dead in January from hunger, insufficient medical care

BREAKING CAMP: A total of 163 residents of rebel-held Yarmouk Camp in Southern Damascus have died of hunger and lack of medical care since the regime and allied Palestinian factions encircled the camp nearly two years ago, reported the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria.

Six people have died this month alone, the monitoring body said on Monday.

Starvation is an ongoing problem, an activist inside the camp told Syria Direct on Tuesday.

“Food in the camp is limited to some stew that the aid kitchen distributes,” said the spokesman for the pro-opposition Yarmouk Camp—Eye of the Storm grassroots group.

While humanitarian aid enters neighboring areas such as al-Qadm, al-Asali, Yelda and Beit Sahm, traders “sell aid to the people of the Yarmouk camp at inflated prices.”

The suffocating siege on Yarmouk has contributed to the rapid spread of disease, with 105 causes of jaundice currently active in the camp, reported Yarmouk Camp—the Eye of the Storm.

In the photograph above, a woman in Yarmouk searches through the trash looking for food.

Starvation and disease are exacerbated by intermittent regime bombings. A picture of bombed-out 15th Street, published by Yarmouk Camp—Eye of the Storm on Monday, displays the extent of the destruction the camp has experienced.

In hitting Yarmouk, the Syrian regime utilizes “random bombing—not directed in any studied manner,” a local citizen journalist who goes by the name Abdullah a-Shami told Syria Direct Tuesday.

-January 27, 2015

-Photo courtesy of akamaihd.

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