UNRWA unable to deliver aid to besieged Palestinian refugees in Syria for

The UN Relief and Works Agency for the Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) announced on Saturday it was once again unable for over a week to distribute food and other humanitarian items on Saturday in Yarmouk Camp, Syria, amid growing concern malnutrition is spreading even further."We have not distributed food there over a week now which is potentially life-threatening for the besieged civilians trapped by the conflict and desperately dependent on UNRWA for food and basic medicines," the Agency's spokesman Chris Gunness said in a statement distributed here.The Agency was able to distribute 6,500 food parcels on 18 January. A food parcel lasts an average family about ten days. Malnutrition is reportedly widespread and "the fate particularly of women and children is of growing concern," Gunness said."The United Nations must have secure, substantial and sustained humanitarian access to the besieged civilians of Yarmouk, whose profound and sustained suffering has come under the spotlight of world attention," Gunness said in his statement."We have been encouraged by the cooperation among the parties which allowed us to resume aid to civilians in Yarmouk on 18 January and we trust that we will soon be allowed to continue our distributions," he added.The outgoing UNRWA Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi said at the UN this week that the 525,000 Palestinian refugees residing in Syria are now in need of priority attention as the escalating violence threatens to entrap them in the midst of a bloody conflict with no end in sight.