BALADI NEWS
For the first time in seven months, thousands of displaced Syrians in a desolate camp on the Syrian-Jordanian border are receiving organised supplies of food aid.
Dozens of trucks belonging to the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), an Assad regime affiliated aid agency, entered Rukban camp on Friday morning, a UN spokesperson and camp residents said according to the Middle East Eye.
Long-starved families lined up to receive packages of flour, rice and other food items, according to residents and an apparent UN document detailing the distribution plan seen by MEE.
For them, it was the first time they had received desperately needed donations of basic food and other supplies since a previous UN-SARC aid convoy brought food and medicine in early February.
The aid distribution was “scheduled to start in Rukban” on Friday, said Hedinn Halldorsson, a spokesperson for the UN’s aid coordination body OCHA in Damascus.
According to the as-yet unverified UN distribution plan, each family would receive 50kg of flour, 15kg of rice, as well as other basic food supplies.
A makeshift medical clinic in Rukban was also promised women’s medical supplies, the clinic’s nurse Shukri Shihab said, though MEE could not independently confirm his claim.
The ongoing aid distribution is set to last five days and is organised by residents’ tribes and town of origin, according to the document.
Friday’s delivery is the second part of a controversial joint UN-SARC mission to Rukban that is later set to see the United Nations help transport camp residents who wish to leave for regime-controlled Homs.
Source: MEE.