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Syria's Yarmouk camp security going "from bad to worse": EU

Xinhua, April 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

The European Union on Friday said the security and humanitarian situation in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria had gone from bad to worse.

"Innocent people are now being used as human shields by the fighting sides. The Syria crisis has already led to too much suffering," the EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and the Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides said in a statement.

"The EU calls on all belligerents and all parties with influence over them to respect international law, ensure unhindered humanitarian access and provide safe passage for all civilians who wish to escape," said the statement.

It said the European Commission had released immediate emergency funding of 2.5 million euros (2.6 million U.S. dollars) to the UN Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA)'s operation in Syria.

The Yarmouk camp is a large district in southern Damascus. Among its one million residents, 170,000 are Palestinians. Most of them fled to Syria in 1948 following the establishment of the Israeli state.

Many people inside the camp have suffered greatly during the last two years as the suffocating siege by government troops prevented the entry of food and medicine to the trapped people, save for some aid convoys that were delivered in cooperation between the Syrian authorities and humanitarian organizations. Endit