Syria: Rukban camp receives first aid shipment in month

The distribution is expected to take seven days

This picture shows an aid convoy of the red crescent arriving at the Rukban desert camp for displaced Syrians along Syria's border with Jordan on February 06, 2019. AFP

An aid convoy on Wednesday reached displaced Syrians in desperate need of assistance near the Jordanian border, in the first such delivery in three months, the Red Crescent said.

The convoy of 133 trucks carrying aid including food and clothes for children reached the outskirts of the Rukban camp, said a spokeswoman for the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

"Three months after a first humanitarian aid convoy entered the Rukban camp, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in collaboration with the United Nations is continuing to carry out its duty towards more than 40,000 displaced people in Rukban," SARC said in a statement.

The convoy also includes healthcare items and medical supplies to immunise women and children, it said.

"A vaccination campaign will be launched, under the supervision of a medical team, to immunise children against measles, polio, tuberculosis and hepatitis," SARC added.

Wednesday's delivery is the first to reach the camp on the Jordanian border, after a first smaller convoy from Damascus on November 3.

The November delivery was the first to reach the camp from the Syrian capital in around 10 months, after another via the Jordanian border in January 2018.

Conditions inside the camp have deteriorated, with many inside surviving on just one simple meal a day, often bread and olive oil or yoghurt, according to one resident.

Last month, the UN children's agency Unicef said eight children had died at the camp due to winter cold.