(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) The United States has strongly condemned the Syrian regime's latest shelling and bombing of the Palestinian-inhabited Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus, and expressed concern over reports of ongoing violent clashes at the shanty town.
The regime's latest aerial bombardment further threatens thousands of trapped civilians who have struggled under horrendous siege conditions for nearly two years, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said in a statement, late on Thursday.
The military strikes, she noted, also imperil humanitarian relief agencies' ability to provide life-saving assistance to people in the camp and surrounding neighborhoods to which many Yarmouk residents have reportedly recently fled.
The Syrian regime must lift the siege of Yarmouk and allow United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and other humanitarian partners immediate and unfettered access to vulnerable populations in need, both in Yarmouk and in the surrounding regime-besieged neighborhoods, the statement added.
Moreover, the US urged all parties including the regime, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Al-Nusrah and Aknaf Bait Al-Maqdis, to provide safe passage to those civilians who choose to relocate temporarily; families must not be separated; and departing civilians must not be detained.
"The US continues to call for independent, international monitoring of civilians' passage to ensure it is safe and in line with international law," she added. Yarmouk is only one example of the conflict's devastating impact on civilian populations, where the Syrian regime's continued siege, combined with the recent incursions by ISIL, has decimated entire neighborhoods in the camp and reflects more broadly the death, destruction and despair to which innocent Syrians have been subjected to for more than four years, the statement described.
The international community, she said, must come together with a heightened sense of urgency to find a political solution that can end the terrible conflict.
To that end, the US welcomed the United Nations' efforts, under the leadership of Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, to "foster dialogue between all parties to advance conditions for a genuine political solution in line with the Geneva Communique.
We also urge the United Nations to work intensively to facilitate the safe relocation of civilians who wish to leave Yarmouk." In response to the devastating crisis in Yarmouk, last Friday, at the UN Security Council briefing on the situation in the Middle East, the US announced an additional USD six million in aid to UNRWA, to provide urgent assistance, both for the many thousands still trapped in Yarmouk and for other Palestinians and Syrians receiving a lifeline from the agency. (end) mao.rk
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