Syria’s Al-Hol camp ‘far over capacity’ as IDPs flood out of Baghouz: ICRC
“Each wave of new arrivals seems to be in worse condition than the one before,” the ICRC said in its operational update published Monday.
“Access to latrines and washing facilities is no longer adequate and more will be needed.”
The humanitarian organization, alongside the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), says it has been serving 6,500 hot meals per day since February to help 1,300 vulnerable people, including 848 children. Some 98,000 liters of clean water are also being trucked in on daily basis.
However, ICRC says it is struggling to keep pace with the growing number of new arrivals.
“While the comparatively smaller number of foreign fighters and their families have received the most international attention, let’s also remember that tens of thousands of Syrian residents in the camps need immediate aid,” said Philip Spoerri, head of the ICRC’s delegation in Syria.
“A stream of new arrivals has pushed the camp far over capacity.”
Weather conditions and a lack of shelter are adding to their misery.
“The nights are biting. More than two dozen children are reported to have died due to the cold in recent weeks. People are bundled in clothes, as they have no indoors to go to. Some don’t even have tents yet and remain exposed to rain, wind and bitter temperatures,” Spoerri said.
According to the ICRC, “new arrivals, including families with infants, must sleep in the open and under blankets hung from the fences, exposed to the cold weather and rain.”
Besides meeting the urgent humanitarian needs of new arrivals, the ICRC says it is also trying to assist families separated on the journey to the camp.
“The ICRC is particularly concerned about children who are living in the camps without their parents or habitual guardians, as well as other especially vulnerable persons,” it said.
Thousands of people have flooded out of the besieged village of Baghouz in northeast Syria’s Deir ez-Zor province as Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the international coalition close in on the last Islamic State holdout.
The SDF has been overwhelmed by the task of screening individuals – many of them suspected ISIS fighters and jihadi wives carrying weapons and documents.
ISIS militants are thought to be holding hundreds of civilians, including children and Yezidi captives, as human shields inside the sliver of territory.
