A rights group said that at least 45 Palestinian refugees were killed in different parts of Syria last April as the Assad regime is launching a ferocious onslaught on the Yarmouk camp in southern Damascus, the largest camp for Palestinian refugees in Syria.
In a new report released on Sunday, the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS) said that 35 Palestinian refugees were killed in Damascus, eight in Damascus Rural, and one in each of Aleppo and Dara’a.
The Group said that 20 Palestinians died in gunfire and 18 others in shelling while three were killed in an unidentified location. The victims also included two others who were field executed and two more who died under torture in the prisons of the Assad regime. They also included one refugee who was killed by a sniper fire and one who was killed in a blast in the town of Al-Bab.
Since mid-April, Yarmouk camp in the capital Damascus has been subjected to a fierce assault by the Assad regime which seeks to recapture the district. The United Nations expressed concern over the lives of thousands of civilians who are still trapped inside.
According to estimates by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), 6,200 Palestinian refugees have been trapped in Yarmouk camp since 2011, which the United Nations designated as hard to reach.
Last week, the United Nations said that the Assad regime prevents the entry of humanitarian aid to civilians trapped in the Yarmouk camp as it called for protecting civilians who are still trapped in the camp and not to allow their displacement as was in the case in other areas across Syria. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)