World Health Organization [WHO] has announced Tuesday that at least 29 children and newborns have died over the last 8 weeks, mainly from hypothermia, while traveling to the camp or shortly after arrival in Hasakeh's Al-Hol Camp, in Syria.

"The World Health Organization is extremely concerned about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Al-Hol camp in Al-Hasakeh governorate," the report said while making a call on all parties to the conflict to provide unhindered humanitarian access to people in need of life-saving aid.

Over the last 2 months, approximately 23 000 people, mainly women, and children fleeing hostilities in rural areas of neighboring Deir-ez-Zor, have arrived in the camp.

Many of them have walked or traveled in open trucks for several days and nights in the bitterly cold winter weather. Their journeys have been delayed en route by lengthy security screening procedures in an exposed field, and their ordeal has not ended on arrival to the camp.

Thousands of new arrivals have been forced to spend several nights in the camp’s open-air reception and screening areas, without tents, blankets or heating.

Underlining that about 23,000 people have arrived at the camp in Hasakeh, WHO noted that the situation in the camp is now critical. "Its population has tripled in size (from 10 000 to almost 33 000 people) in less than 2 months."

The authorities are overwhelmed and struggling to cope with the sheer numbers of people while WHO observed that the humanitarian access to the camp and surrounding roads is hampered by bureaucratic obstacles and security constraints.

”The situation in Al-Hol camp is heartbreaking. Children are dying from hypothermia as their families flee to safety. We are scaling up our efforts in Al Hol, but we need faster approvals to allow us to deliver supplies, and we need guaranteed access to both the camp and the roads leading to it," said Elizabeth Hoff, WHO Representative in Syria.

"We call on all parties to give us unhindered access so that we can reach these people and give them the help they desperately need,” she added.

ILKHA