article_snippet.sent: A destroyed graveyard is photographed in Yarmouk camp following the intense fighting .
article_snippet.sent: Destroyed: In late December 2012, Yarmouk - just four miles from central Damascus - became a battlefield between pro- and anti-government forces before a merciless siege began .
article_snippet.sent: Anwar Abdel Hadi, a Palestine Liberation Organisation official in Damascus, said 500 families, or about 2,500 people, fled Yarmouk before IS fighters attacked the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp last Wednesday.
article_snippet.sent: Before the assault, there were around 18,000 people in Yarmouk in a southern neighbourhood of the Syrian capital.
article_snippet.sent: Yarmouk was once a thriving district housing 160,000 Palestinian refugees and Syrians.
article_snippet.sent: In late December 2012, Yarmouk - just four miles from central Damascus - became a battlefield between pro- and anti-government forces before a merciless siege began.
article_snippet.sent: According to Britain-based monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, nearly 200 people had died in Yarmouk from malnutrition and lack of medicines before the assault.
article_snippet.sent: Before the assault, there were around 18,000 people in Yarmouk in a southern neighbourhood of Damascus .