Arab League calls for urgent intervention to protect Palestinian refugees in Yarmouk

The Arab League has demanded the international community to intervene immediately to ensure that Yarmouk and other Palestinian refugee camps are not dragged further into the on-going conflict in Syria. The refugees should be spared the horror of the civil war going on around them, said the umbrella organisation.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the league said that it is watching and following the dangerous and degraded situations affecting more than half-a-million Palestinian refugees in Syria. “The inhuman attacks against the Palestinians have increased recently in the wake of military groups entering Yarmouk Camp over the past few days. They have turned it into a war zone, creating an even bigger humanitarian catastrophe.”

Warning that the refugees in Yarmouk, including women and children, are the most affected by the continuing conflict and accompanying severe blockade of the camp, the Arab League pointed out that there is a serious lack of medical services and high prices for very scarce food and fuel. “The current poor weather is hampering efforts by the already stretched UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to provide essential services in the camp,” the league added. It pointed out that from the beginning of the siege on 22 July, 2013 until 18 February, 172 refugees died as a result of starvation and illness, with food and medical care kits in extremely short supply.

“The Palestinian refugees are not a party to the conflict; they are nothing but guests within Syria until they can return to their home after the establishment of a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region,” the spokesman explained. “They also need the necessary financial and humanitarian support for UNRWA and other relief organisations and institutions working in the field, as well as the UN and its various agencies, including the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, in order to avert an even bigger catastrophe.”

When ISIS entered the Yarmouk refugee camp, in the south of Damascus, the move sparked clashes with the militants of “Aknāf Bayt Al-Maqdis”, causing deaths and injuries on both sides. Local activists told Anadolu that the humanitarian situation in the camp is deteriorating while the fighting continues.

According to the Syrian Human Rights Network on Sunday, at least 13 civilians have been killed in Yarmouk in the past six days. The 20,000 refugees still in the camp are suffering from “unprecedented conditions” while Syrian regime forces surround the camp.

Yarmouk is the largest of the nine Palestinian refugee camps inside Syria. It is located about 10 km from Damascus city centre. According to the network, the civil war has pushed at least 185,000 Palestinians to leave their homes in the camp and flee to other areas inside Syria or in neighbouring countries.

As the conflict in Syria entered its fifth year, nearly 200,000 people have been killed, according to UN statistics; the Syrian opposition put the figure at more than 300,000 but both sources agree that more than 10 million people have been displaced internally and abroad.

Images below by MEMO photographer Mohammed Asad, of a protest in Gaza against the ISIS capture of Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp.