Where is the outrage? Where is the outcry from the world? Where are all the supporters of the Palestinian People?
Al Yarmouk was (is) a refugee camp for Palestinians forced from their homes by the Israelis many years ago. It was once the biggest camp in Syria for Palestinian refugees and was hailed by the regime as a model of their support of the Palestinians.
Not any more.
With the start of the Syria crisis in March 2011, the "refugee camp" itself became a refugee camp once more, the shelter for thousands of families, who fled from villages surrounding Al Yarmouk. Syrians and Palestinians are living together in the camp. The generosity and hospitality of the people living there was overwhelming to the new refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war.
During the civil war raging in Syria rebels seized control of the camp. The Syrians responded. Since the beginning of 2013, the Palestinian camp has been under an extremely harsh siege by Syrian government forces.… More than 2000 people have died there. More than 135 people have starved to death or died because they do not have access to medication or treatment. The Syrian officials have permitted only sporadic access to Yarmouk, to relief groups led by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), since early last year.
Syrian authorities are not allowing food to be delivered and residents have been forced to "dine" on leaves and animal feed. Anti-government forces are using areas in and around the camp for their own ends. No one seems to care much for the people just trying to survive there.
Albawaba reports that,
All non-Palestinian militant factions agreed to leave Yarmouk on Feb. 11 in a deal to allow humanitarian aid to the camp, whose residents were dying of hunger and disease. Within weeks, however, various militant groups re-positioned themselves in the camp.
Syrian regime forces eventually encircled the camp and imposed a siege on the camp, leading to a rapid deterioration of living conditions.
"We've got nothing," said Abu Issa, 60, a resident of Yarmouk. "No food, no money. We are sharing the animals' food by living on grass we get from the gardens. The Syrian army do not allow anything to get in unless the rebels leave the camp and the rebels refuse to leave and we are stuck between. I have three sons, they were desperate to leave the camp by any means. A smuggler promised to take them out and then outside of Syria, but they were arrested at the first checkpoint and I know nothing about them, if they're dead or alive."
"It is unprecedented in living memory for a UNRWA-assisted population to be subject to abject desperation in this way and the sheer humanitarian facts cry out for a response," organisation spokesman Chris Gunness told the Observer. "Without that, the humanity of all of us must be seriously questioned.
"It is an affront to all of us that in a capital city of a member state, women are dying in childbirth for lack of medical care, there are incidents of malnutrition among infants and people are resorting to eating animal feed."
Mahmoud Nassar, a Palestinian activist who has chosen to stay inside the camp, told Beyond Compromise,
There is no more food in Yarmouk...There is not a single operational hospital inside the camp. We ran out from fuel...
Beyond Compromise adds:
Yarmouk, since at least a year, has depended entirely on generators to run crucial medical services. The fuel these generators depend on is slowly running out as well. Today, the camp is not only being emptied of food, fuel and hope. It is also surrounded by regime checkpoint at its entrance which do not allow any Palestinians in or out of the camp. Regardless of whether they are women, children or the elderly, the regime sniper fire has transformed the entrance of Yarmouk into a death zone.
Yarmouk has always been a symbol of palestinian insistence, "...insistence that the right of return be addressed, insistence that their narrative be recognized, that their need for safety be respected, that their rights be upheld, that they live in dignity."
Now, Yarmouk’s survival prospects appear fatally bleak. Al-Manar news writes:
If one allows oneself some basic deductions about the last three years and the ongoing upheaval, it is difficult to escape the conclusion, increasingly heard from Palestinians themselves, that Yarmouk, as with four other Palestinian refugee camps in Syria, is deeply wounded by the war being waged, that it is unlikely to survive the crisis, whether the latter ends in months or continues for decades...
With respect to Yarmouk, there is a very real possibility that this largest of Syria’s refugee camps will succumb to a fate similar to those of the Tel al-Zaatar, Nabatieh, and Nahr al-Bared (now partially rebuilt after seven years) camps in Lebanon, but the loss of Yarmouk will be doubly compounded because in Syria, Palestinians found secure, sympathetic refuge in 1948. At that time, Palestinians fleeing their homeland were welcomed in solidarity—as Yarmouk became a symbol of resistance—but in 2014, there simply is no more welcome. For over six decades the Palestinian residents here nurtured families and communities, integrated economically, and formed a subset of the cultural and intellectual fabric of a vibrant and proud Syrian society, but a civil war and a Western-backed insurgency have changed the landscape, perhaps for good.
Where are we?
The following is from the Ma'an News Agency.
Official: Yarmouk residents to protest against militant groups
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Residents of Syria's Yarmouk refugee camp plan to organize peaceful rallies to pressure armed groups to leave the area, a Fatah official said Tuesday.
Muhammad Abu al-Qasim, a foreign relations official of the Fatah movement, told Ma'an Tuesday that "a large number of people will march toward the bases of armed groups to force them to leave the camp."
Palestinian factions in Yarmouk have made extended efforts to end the humanitarian crisis in the Damascus-based camp, but have had no success, al-Qasim said.
He said thousands of Palestinian refugees were waiting for food parcels, which have not been regularly delivered due to fighting in the camp.
Muhammad Abu al-Qasim, a foreign relations official of the Fatah movement, told Ma'an Tuesday that "a large number of people will march toward the bases of armed groups to force them to leave the camp."
Palestinian factions in Yarmouk have made extended efforts to end the humanitarian crisis in the Damascus-based camp, but have had no success, al-Qasim said.
He said thousands of Palestinian refugees were waiting for food parcels, which have not been regularly delivered due to fighting in the camp.
After rebels seized control of the Palestinian refugee camp in December 2012, the camp became embroiled in the armed fighting taking place across Syria and came under heavy regime assault.
Regime forces eventually encircled the camp and in July imposed a siege on the camp, leading to a rapid deterioration of living conditions.
Fatah leader Abbas Zaki told Ma'an in mid-October that Yarmouk's population of 250,000 had dwindled to 18,000 after two and a half years of conflict in Syria.
All non-Palestinian militant factions agreed to leave Yarmouk on Feb. 11 in a deal to allow humanitarian aid to the camp, whose residents were dying of hunger and disease. Within weeks, however, various militant groups re-positioned themselves in the camp.
The UN Agency for Palestine refugees has managed to deliver sporadic shipments of humanitarian aid to Yarmouk since January, in between periods of fighting in the camp.
The Syrian conflict, which began as peaceful protests in March 2011 but developed into a civil war, has killed more than 150,000 people and prompted millions to flee their homes.
More than 760,000 Palestinians -- estimated today to number 4.8 million with their descendants -- were pushed into exile or driven out of their homes in the conflict surrounding Israel's creation in 1948.
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