Under a bright sun, Ahmad is watching his grandchildren play cheerfully on colourful slides. They have come to the rehabilitated UNRWA community space in Yarmouk camp, near the Syrian capital Damascus. This space, reopened in 2023, stands amid ruined buildings, a mark of years of conflict.

According to an assessment conducted between April and June 2024, 72 per cent of houses and apartments in the camp were damaged during the war in Syria. Yarmouk camp used to host the largest Palestine Refugee community in the country – about 160,000 people – and was an important commercial hub before the war started in 2011. Forced to flee their homes due to conflict, siege, and fighting, families recently started to return to Yarmouk. As of September 2024, around 8,000 Palestine Refugees were registered with UNRWA in the camp.

Ahmad, aged 85, is one of them. He was still a child when he arrived in southern Syria from Galilee during the “Nakba” – the mass displacement of Palestinians as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War He eventually moved to Yarmouk in 1967 and has stayed there to this today, living through the war, the siege, and the destruction of the camp. He is now witnessing life returning to the camp, and its gradual rehabilitation.

“The UNRWA Community Space is a breathing and lively space for all people who have come back, people who were confined to their houses, living in the rubble. It is especially important for children,” Ahmad says.

Aicha, 61, who lives in the same neighbourhood, concurs:

“The Community Space is what brought us some relief during the sunny hours — especially when we don’t have heating. We used to go out there just to get some air and escape the pressure. Our homes are not very comfortable, so that space is a real joy. It’s very open and nice to sit in,” she says.

Aicha was selected to be part of the UNRWA Minor Shelter Repair project, which supports vulnerable families with the rehabilitation of their destroyed and damaged homes so they can live in dignity. This programme also supports Dawlat, 71, and her husband Husein, 85. Both left Yarmouk in 2012 when the conflict started to severely impact the camp. They came back around a year ago. Their house had been all but destroyed, and Dawlat came in and out of Yarmouk, fixing it for over five years, so they could return to live in the camp. “When I returned, I was sleeping on mud,” she recalls.

“The most important thing is that we came back to our house. For me, sitting on the rubble of my house is better than sitting in someone else’s house or in collective shelters.”

In Yarmouk, UNRWA also supports Palestine Refugee families through healthcare provided at the UNRWA health centre which was rehabilitated in 2023. Dawlat’s husband, for example, suffers from diabetes. “We are so grateful for UNRWA’s initiative to help with the rehabilitation of our house, but we need more support as the situation is really bad.”

UNRWA requires urgent funding to continue assisting with repairing damaged shelters and UNRWA installations in Palestine Refugee camps in Syria, and to resume essential services, including education and healthcare, on a larger scale.