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Aid workers deliver food to Damascus district: UN

280 families received food parcels on Wednesday, adding that they are preparing to deliver more food to about 18,000 Yarmouk residents on Thursday.

The relief agency supporting Palestinian refugees resumed food distribution inside the rebel-held district of the Syrian capital that has suffered from crippling shortages of food and medicine for months, a United Nations spokesman said Thursday.

The UNRWA announcement comes as Western and Arab nations supporting a UN Security Council resolution demanding immediate access across in Syria to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid to civilians under siege called for a vote this week, even though diplomats say Russia is opposed to key provisions.

Chris Gunness, a spokesman for UNRWA agency that administers Palestinian refugee camps around the Middle East, said in a statement that the Syrian government granted access for relief workers to enter Yarmouk on Wednesday after an 11-day halt. He said 280 families received food parcels on Wednesday, adding that they are preparing to deliver more food to about 18,000 Yarmouk residents on Thursday.

The Yarmouk refugee camp, located in southern Damascus, is one of the hardest-hit opposition enclaves that have been under tight blockades imposed by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. More than 100 people have died in Yarmouk since mid-2013 as a result of starvation and illnesses exacerbated by hunger or lack of medical aid, according to the UN figures.

“UNRWA staff heard passionate and vocal demands by Yarmouk civilians for substantial, sustained humanitarian access to Yarmouk, for the restoration of UNRWA services, and for Yarmouk to be rapidly opened for normal civilian life,” Gunnnes said in a statement, urging the Syrian government and the rebels to “respond positively and immediately to these demands.”

Supporters of the UN resolution said the document had been put in its final form late Wednesday, with a vote likely on Friday. It is unclear whether Moscow will veto the resolution or abstain from the vote.

Russia is supporting Assad’s government in Syrian’s nearly 3-year-old conflict. The United States and its allies in the Europe and the Arabian Gulf are backing most of the opposition that is fighting to oust Assad.