By Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA (Reuters) -The United Nations refugee agency expressed concern on Friday about the impact of hostilities in Syria’s southern city of Sweida on its aid operations, and urged all sides to allow more humanitarian access.
Syria’s government sent troops this week to the predominantly Druze city to quell fighting between Bedouins and Druze, but the violence grew until a fragile ceasefire took hold.
“The situation in Sweida is very concerning. It is very difficult for us to operate there … at the moment our capacity to deliver aid is very limited,” William Spindler, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters in Geneva.
“We are calling on all parties to allow humanitarian access,” he said.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights, an independent monitoring group, said it had documented 254 people killed in four days of fighting, including medical personnel, women and children.
The UNHCR said its operations had been impacted by road closures and that it had had to move all 15 staff members in its office in rural Sweida out of the area because of safety concerns.
The U.N. estimated on Thursday that about 2,000 families had been displaced from areas affected by violence in Sweida Province. The UNHCR said this number was continuing to rise.
“At the moment our capacity to deliver aid is very limited. We are calling on all parties to allow humanitarian access,” Spindler said. The UNHCR also said it was challenging to support people in displacement centres established by the authorities.
Needs on the ground are considerable, the UNHCR said, with water in short supply and hospitals overwhelmed by the number of injured needing treatment.
“They need things like blankets and solar lamps…we have that in stock and are ready to deliver them as soon as the security allows it,” Spindler said.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, Editing by Miranda Murray, Matthias Williams and Timothy Heritage)
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