To know what it is like in Yarmouk, turn off your electricity, water, heating, eat once a day, live in the dark, live by burning wood – Anas, a Yarmouk resident.
MORE THAN ONE year ago, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) released the above image of a sea of refugees at the besieged Palestinian camp in Yarmouk in Damascus.
They called desperately for warring sides to allow aid workers back into the neighbourhood to give food, water and medical care to the 18,000 people, including 3,500 children, trapped inside.
That was 14 months ago and today the crisis continues.
Fighting has intensified around the camp, which is now mostly controlled by Islamic State militants. Over the weekend, amid violent exchanges, there were reports of beheading by militants in the camp. Yarmouk is encircled by Syrian government forces and neither they nor the militants are showing signs of backing down.
Meanwhile, for more than two years now, the men, women and children trapped inside the camp have been slowly starving. Last year, UNRWA was only able to distribute food in Yarmouk on 131 days, not nearly enough to meet the minimum needs of the people inside. The agency has said residents are living on about 400 calories a day.
Mahd, a resident at the camp, speaks of the difficulty he has providing for his starving children:
The most difficult thing is when my kids get up in the morning and ask for milk and bread and it is not available and I have to give them a radish or some vegetable, and sometimes that is not available.
Another resident, Raed’a, said winter is the most miserable time for people. Most houses in the decimated area have no doors or windows.
“We depend on radishes and lettuce and green things grown in the neighbourhood, but those food times had frozen. The water pipe exploded because of the snow.”
The situation is so dire, children collect ground water to bring back to their families:
Residents burn clothes as fuel to keep themselves warm:
For two years, these people have been trapped in this hell, under constant threat of violence.
On Sunday, 94 civilians managed to escape before the violent Islamic State advance. Any Palestinian refugees who leave the camp face relocation to some other areas of the troubled country. For them, flight from the camp is the better of two evils.
Though a small number escaped, thousands were still trapped in Yarmouk on Sunday, without food, without medical supplies, without hope.
Because of the scale of the violence in the area, aid workers have not been able to reach refugees since 1 April. They are pleading with warring sides to let them back in so they can help people.
Yesterday the UN Security Council also demanded humanitarian aid access to Yarmouk and renewed its demand for armed groups inside the camp to respect and comply with their obligations to ensure protection of civilians.
Many of us wish to die but we cannot end our lives. We can do nothing but wait like in the play, Waiting for Godot, we are waiting for someone who never shows up.
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