A/HRC/40/70 VI. Internally displaced persons and refugees 83. Battles waged throughout 2018 by pro-government forces, other State actors, armed groups and terrorist entities caused over 1.5 million civilians to flee their homes in fear and desperation. Thousands of other civilians were forcibly displaced pursuant to “evacuation agreements” negotiated among warring parties. The plight of displaced persons now affects more than 5.6 million refugees who have fled the country and more than 6.2 million internally displaced civilians inside the Syrian Arab Republic. Rukban camp 84. Despite discussions between Jordan and the Russian Federation in early November to close Rukban camp, some 41,000 Syrian women, men and children remain confined in the southern desert near the border with Jordan. The majority of encamped civilians subsist in exceptionally dire conditions, with little to no access to basic services, including medical care, education and basic sanitary services. Due to the absence of security guarantees from tribal community leaders and armed groups overseeing the camp, as well as the routine, arbitrary denial of consent for aid deliveries by Syrian authorities, humanitarian convoys have been repeatedly halted. 85. Following the closure by pro-government forces of at least one unofficial supply route used to smuggle vital foodstuffs and medicine, living conditions in Rukban deteriorated significantly towards the end of September. As the cost of food correspondingly soared, civilians suffered a large-scale humanitarian disaster. At least one young woman aged 20 died of malnutrition induced by economic hardship. 86. For the first time since January 2018, the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent delivered aid to encamped residents, on 3 November, followed by a one-off exceptional delivery from Jordan on 9 December. In addition to difficulties in access to basic services, the plight of civilians in Rukban is compounded by a complete lack of law enforcement and the lack of complaint mechanisms within the camp. 87. Women and girls in Rukban have been disproportionately affected by rampant sexual and gender-based violence, child marriage and exploitation at the camp. For women, pregnancy complications are also commonplace, and expectant mothers have been forced to wait for hours at the border to have access to the closest medical facility. 88. The situation of children is particularly extreme: of the camp’s roughly 10,000 children, many of whom lack civil documentation and are effectively stateless, at least half lack access to basic education, with several among them reportedly illiterate. One man displaced from Homs Governorate underscored the prevalence of child malnutrition leading to preventable deaths, describing how desperate parents were forced to nourish their infants with a mixture of water and sugar instead of milk. At least four malnourished infants unable to receive medical treatment died between October and December. Aside from lack of access to sustained humanitarian aid, incidents of the recruitment and use of children by armed groups and child labour have generated additional human rights abuses. Aleppo Governorate 89. Patterns of hostilities, arbitrary arrest and suppression of political dissent by armed groups in Afrin District (Aleppo) also triggered civilian displacement towards governmentcontrolled areas and to areas under Kurdish control in the east. At the same time, tens of thousands of civilians returned to Afrin during the period under review, many only to find their homes pillaged. In other cases, returnees found their homes appropriated by fighters and their families (see also A/HRC/39/65, para. 30). The Commission is currently reviewing allegations that those displaced from Afrin are required to initiate a court process to regain access to their properties. Investigations are ongoing. Dayr al-Zawr Governorate 90. As hostilities in and around Hajin intensified (see paras. 44–49 above), civilians trapped in the city and adjacent sub-districts of Sur, Basira, Dhiban and Susah recalled the 17