Syria: Islamic State seizes control of refugee camp near Damascus

Aid agencies warn of humanitarian crisis after Islamist fighters move to control 90% of camp in town of Yarmouk 

 Heavily damaged buildings in the rebel-held area of Douma, east of Damascus. Islamist militants have seized control of a refugee camp in Yarmouk, Syria. Photograph: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images

Dan Carrier and agencies-Saturday 4 April 2015

Aid agencies have warned of an urgent humanitarian crisis after Islamist militants seized control of a refugee camp, just a few miles from Damascus, the Syrian capital.

Fighters for the Islamic State and the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s official Syria wing, advanced into the camp in the town of Yarmouk – home to 18,000 refugees – on Friday night, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. They now control 90% of the camp, it said.

The Observatory, which monitors the conflict from the UK, also said jets from Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s air forcebombed the camp on Saturday.

Chris Gunness, a United Nations Relief and Works Agency spokesman, called the crisis in Yarmouk “an affront to the humanity of all of us, a source of universal shame”. 

He said Palestinian and Syrian refugees in the camp, which had previously been besieged by Assad’s forces, were already suffering from starvation and disease.

Isis militants launched an attack on other groups of fighters in Yarmouk on Wednesday. Their main target was Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, an anti-Assad militia of Syrians and Palestinians from the camp. 

Isis supporters posted photos on social media of the severed heads of two men they said had been beheaded after fighting for the rival group.

Tayseer Abu Baker, head of the Palestinian Liberation Front in Syria, part of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, told Reuters that Isis fighters had killed 21 people including fighters and civilians since Friday. 

The evacuation of the camp had been made harder as Isis snipers were shooting refugees as they tried to leave the camp.