Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The Russian Defense Ministry has opened two "humanitarian corridors" for the refugees living in Rukban camp in Syria, Mikhail Mizintsev, the head of the Russia's National Defense Management Center, said Tuesday.

Two checkpoints have been set up near Jleighem and Jebel al-Gurab settlements, Mizintsev said at a news conference in Moscow.

"This step is dictated by the urgent need for an early solution to the problems of ordinary Syrians, who continue to live in appalling conditions," he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry originally announced the move on Saturday to "allow Syrian refugees to leave voluntarily for places of residence they choose."

Nearly 60,000 refugees live under harsh conditions in Rukban, located in a remote area of the Syrian desert near the Jordanian border.

Most of the refugees there fled areas in eastern Syria that had once fallen to the Daesh terror group, and were trapped after Jordanian authorities closed the border.

Last year, at least 20 people died inside the camp, faced with starvation, disease and lack of medicine.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has blamed the Assad regime for the humanitarian crisis in the desert camp and accused the Jordanian government of banning the entry of humanitarian aid into the camp.

Since it began in 2011, Syria's civil war has killed more than 350,000 and displaced one-third of its pre-war population of 30 million.

*Daily Sabah