U.N. Warns of Deepening Crisis in Syrian Refugee Camp Overrun by Militants
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Version 0 of 1. United Nations officials said Friday that the siege of Yarmouk, the devastated refugee camp in Syria where 18,000 severely malnourished and dehydrated Palestinians are trapped, had worsened despite emotional entreaties from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who sent an envoy to Damascus, the Syrian capital, to help seek a solution. Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which administers aid to Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, said in a statement that his information indicated that there had been no letup in fighting since Islamic State militants and their affiliates invaded the camp more than a week ago. “The violence that began in Yarmouk on April 2nd is not just continuing, it has intensified,” he said. “The world community must not stand by as a silent witness to what the U.N. Secretary General has warned could be a massacre. Yarmouk is at the lower reaches of hell. It must not be allowed to descend further.” On Thursday, Mr. Ban delivered an unusually strong denunciation of those responsible for the crisis in Yarmouk, once the biggest enclave of Palestinian refugees in Syria, which has become completely entangled in the four-year-old civil war ravaging the country. The Islamic State is believed to have control of 60 percent of the camp, where most of its remaining inhabitants reside. “A refugee camp is beginning to resemble a death camp,” Mr. Ban told reporters at the United Nations. He said residents, including 3,500 children, “are being turned into human shields.” Yarmouk, on the southern outskirts of Damascus, is the closest that Islamic State militants have come to the doorstep of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The camp is now essentially a combat zone between the militants, known for flaunting their ruthlessness, and Mr. Assad’s forces, who also have a reputation for brutality that includes the use of indiscriminate weapons like barrel bombs. Mr. Ban said residents “face a double-edged sword — armed elements inside the camp, and government forces outside.” Mr. Gunness said in his statement that his agency’s inability to gain access to Yarmouk “is putting 18,000 Palestinian and Syrian men, women and children at grave risks, as they remain unable to meet their most basic food, water and health care needs, in a context of relentless fighting.” In a telephone interview from his offices in Jerusalem, Mr. Gunness said he had no reliable information on casualties inside Yarmouk. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group with a network of contacts in the country, reported that Syrian military aircraft had dumped 36 barrel bombs on Yarmouk since last Sunday, and that at least 47 people were killed in the fighting. Asked on Friday about who Mr. Ban was communicating with regarding the Yarmouk crisis, Stéphane Dujarric, his spokesman, told reporters that Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, the deputy special envoy for Syria, was en route to Damascus for discussions, and that there were “contacts going on in various levels with a number of parties.” The Palestinian leadership has given mixed signals about how to deal with the crisis in Yarmouk, which housed 150,000 refugees before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Ahmed Majdalani, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, was quoted by the BBC as saying during a visit to Damascus on Thursday that Palestinian leaders and the Syrian government were ready to collaborate militarily to drive the Islamic State out of Yarmouk. But his assertion was contradicted soon afterward by the P.L.O. headquarters in Ramallah, West Bank, which said in a statement: “We refuse to be drawn into any armed campaign, whatever its nature or cover, and we call for resorting to other means to spare the blood of our people and prevent more destruction and displacement for our people of the camp.” Sana, the official news agency in Syria, framed Mr. Majdalani’s position ambiguously, quoting him as saying “any future steps to be taken in Yarmouk camp will be coordinated between Syria and the Palestinians.” |