ISIL Invades Refugee Camp in Damascus
The Islamic State of the Iraq and Levant (ISIL) group have taken over a large parts of the Yarmouk district in southern Damascus, inhabited mainly by Palestinian refugees.
According to Anwar Abdel Hadi, the director of political affairs for the Palestine Liberation Organisation in Damascus; “fighters from ISIL launched an assault this morning on Yarmuk and they took over the majority of the camp” on Wednesday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said ISIL was in control of a “large part” of the neighbourhood after fighting with Palestinian groups also opposed to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
First built for Palestinians fleeing the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Yarmouk has been besieged by fighting between government troops and rebel forces since 2012.
In March, Unrwa, a UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, said: “The extreme hardship faced by Palestine refugees in Yarmouk, but also in other locations in Syria as a result of the armed conflict is, from a human point of view, unacceptable.”
About 18,000 residents are estimated to remain in the camp after many
fled the fighting.
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