Around 2,000 people are evacuated from the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus after the Islamic State group seizes large parts of it, a Palestinian official says.
“Around 400 families, approximately 2,000 people, were able to leave the camp on Friday and Saturday via two secure roads to the Zahira district, which is under army control,” says Anwar Abdul Hadi, a Palestine Liberation Organisation official.
Abdul Hadi says Syrian troops helped in the evacuation, which comes as Palestinian forces battle to hold back IS fighters who captured large swathes of the camp since Wednesday.
Since the jihadist advance, regime forces also shelled the camp and dropped barrel bombs on it, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Palestinian officials and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees are urging humanitarian access to the camp, where about 18,000 people remain under a government siege.
— AFP
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