Representatives of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) paid a visit last week to Yarmouk Camp and toured 12 schools run by the Syrian government and UNRWA in the area.

The visit aimed to assess the damage wrought on educational premises in Yarmouk Camp in order to contribute to reconstruction projects.

Earlier this year, Director-General of the General Authority for Palestinian Arab Refugees (GAPAR), Ali Mustafa, handed over to the Education Ministry a memorandum which he received from education chief in Yarmouk Camp Walid AlKurdi, calling for the rehabilitation of schools in Yarmouk.

Palestinian refugee schoolchildren and students continue to struggle with the devastating impact of the eleven-year warfare.

Available data by UNRWA indicates that 32 UNRWA facilities have been reduced to rubble in Yarmouk Camp alone, including 16 schools, in the Syrian conflict.

Several other UNRWA facilities were destroyed in the Syrian warfare and others have gone out of operation, including two clinics, a vocational training center, a youth development center, and 28 schools, out of 112 UNRWA schools in Syria.

Upon more than one occasion, the UN has raised alarm bells over the striking upsurge in the rate of school dropouts among the Palestinians of Syria, several among whom have left schools to help feeding their impoverished families in unemployment-stricken refugee camps.

Dozens of Palestinian students, schoolchildren, and teaching staff have also been killed or forcibly disappeared in the war-ravaged country.