DAMASCUS, Feb 7, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – An aid convoy on Wednesday reached
displaced Syrians in desperate need of assistance near the Jordanian border,
in the first such delivery in three months, the Red Crescent said.
The convoy of 133 trucks carrying aid including food and clothes for
children reached the outskirts of the Rukban camp, said a spokeswoman for the
Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
“Three months after a first humanitarian aid convoy entered the Rukban
camp, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in collaboration with the United Nations
is continuing to carry out its duty towards more than 40,000 displaced people
in Rukban,” SARC said in a statement.
The convoy also includes healthcare items and medical supplies to immunise
women and children, it said.
“A vaccination campaign will be launched, under the supervision of a
medical team, to immunise children against measles, polio, tuberculosis and
hepatitis,” SARC added.
Wednesday’s delivery is the first to reach the camp on the Jordanian
border, after a first smaller convoy from Damascus on November 3.
The November delivery was the first to reach the camp from the Syrian
capital in around 10 months, after another via the Jordanian border in
January 2018.
Conditions inside the camp have deteriorated, with many inside surviving on
just one simple meal a day, often bread and olive oil or yoghurt, according
to one resident.
Last month, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said eight children had died at
the camp due to winter cold.
The camp, home to displaced people from across Syria, lies close to the Al-
Tanf base used by the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group.
Syria’s civil war has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced
millions since it started with the brutal repression of anti-government
protests in 2011.