Commander Gives One-Week Ultimatum to Yarmouk Camp Militants

 “The armed groups in Yarmouk camp only have this week to surrender their forces,” Zahreh told FNA in Damascus on Sunday.
 
He stressed that if the militants do not surrender themselves, the military operations will determine their fate.
 
Zahreh stressed that the Syrian government and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) are cooperating to send humanitarian aid inside the camp.
 
Syria hosts half a million Palestinian refugees, most of them living in Yarmouk. The camp turned into a flashpoint area in Damascus when unrest broke out in the country in 2011.
 
More than 160,000 refugees lived in the camp until December 2012. But many refugees have escaped from Yarmouk due to attacks by foreign-backed militants who have been fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
 
Large numbers of armed groups, affiliated to Al-Qaeda, are reportedly fortified in the camp.
 
On January 14, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said militants fighting against the Syrian government are blocking aid access to the Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus.
 
Many people have reportedly died in Yarmouk over the past few months because of food and medical shortages in the camp.