Thousands of Palestianian refugees living on the outskirts of Damascus, the capital of Syria, are facing a potentially deadly typhoid outbreak in a community that has been caught in the middle of Syria’s bloody civil war.

Aid workers have been unable to reach the refugees living in the Yarmouk camp since June, but on Tuesday, United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said a team was allowed to temporarily set up a medical unit.

UNRWA staff gained limited access to Yalda, an neighborhood located just east of the Yarmouk camp where many of the displaced Palestinian refugees and Syrian civilians have fled, on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“What we feel we are seeing is the tip of the iceberg,” said UNRWA Spokesperson Christopher Gunness told Mashable. He warned that without proper treatment, the outbreak with continue. “It means that people in a UN protected community in a capital city in the 21st century are faced with the prospect of dying of typhus.”

Yarmouk is located just three miles from the gates of the Syrian presidential palace.

Gunness said UNRWA aid workers have been able to treat patients in Yalda for a few hours per day to provide treatment, but staff have to leave the area because it’s just too dangerous.

Much of Yarmouk is a pile of rubble after constant bombardment from the Assad regime since 2012, as the area has been held by opposition fighters since that time.

The UNRWA mobile health unit treated nearly 500 people over the course of two day, and confirmed 11 cases of typhoid. The group said there were “credible reports” of a typhoid outbreak in the region with other cases in Yarmouk, Yalda and two other areas, Babila and Beit Sahem.

UNRWA said it was able to provide limited health assistance as well as water, sanitation and hygiene supplies to the community.

Syria’s bloody four-year civil war has had a devastating effect on the Palestine refugees that Syria has harbored since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Before the Syrian civil war began in 2011, more than 150,000 Palestinian refugees lived in the Yarmouk camp. By April 2015, 18,000 refugees were still living in the area.

Then Islamic State militants entered the camp, forcing thousands more to flee and cutting off all U.N. access.

Typhoid is a potentially deadly illness caused by the bacteria Salmonella typhi, which is spread by eating contaminated food or drinking contaminated water. But the disease is treatable with antibiotics if the patient is reached in time.

According to UNRWA, of the total 560,000 Palestine refugees living across Syria, nearly all are in continuous need of humanitarian aid, but the war has made it impossible to reach them all.

“The vulnerability of civilians in Yarmouk remains of the highest severity. UNRWA is deeply concerned that without access, the most basic humanitarian needs of Palestinian and Syrian civilians, including many children, continue to be left unmet,” said UNRWA in statement.

Some information from the Associated Press.
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