UNRWA conducted its second humanitarian mission to Yalda today to provide life-saving healthcare consultations to civilians, as well as WASH supplies. In late July 2015, UNRWA received credible reports of an outbreak of typhoid in Yarmouk, putting the lives and wellbeing of thousands of civilians at greater risk, as they continue to survive with extremely limited access to basic healthcare and medicines.
SITUATION REPORT – 19 AUGUST 2015
UNRWA medical personnel established a mobile health point, treating 292 patients over the course of the day. Amongst these patients, UNRWA treated five cases of typhoid.
UNRWA also delivered 150,000 water purification tablets to the local committee to help ensure that residents have access to clean drinking water.
As a heat continues to affect Damascus, with temperatures topping 41°C (105°F), and with frequent cuts in water supplies, the risk of epidemics is extremely worrying in Yarmouk, Yalda, Babila and Beit Saham, as access to health remains heavily limited.
UNRWA’s priority remains the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians within Yarmouk itself and reiterates its strong demand for respect and compliance with obligations to protect civilians and to establish secure conditions under which UNRWA can deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance.
The vulnerability of civilians in Yarmouk remains of the highest severity. UNRWA is deeply concerned that without access, the most basic humanitarian needs of Palestinian and Syrian civilians, including many children, continue to be left unmet.
CALL FOR SUPPORT
As violence continues to profoundly threaten the lives and safety of Palestine refugees throughout Syria, UNRWA appeals for donors to increase their support to the Agency’s Syria Crisis Appeal has received only 30.8% of the funds needed for 2015.
The capacity of the Agency to sustain life-saving emergency interventions, whilst responding immediately to urgent developments such as the one impacting Yarmouk since April 1st, is undermined by chronic underfunding for humanitarian interventions inside Syria.
More than 95% of Palestine refugees now rely on UNRWA to meet their daily needs of food, water and healthcare.
Priority interventions include cash assistance which enables UNRWA to serve up to 470,000 Palestine refugees in need. Additional funding is also required for critical non-food items including blankets, mattresses and hygiene kits for displaced Palestine refugee families throughout Syria.