AMMAN, July 12, 2018 (WAFA) - The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med) said on Wednesday in Amman, Jordan that the conflict in Syria has left 80 percent of the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp, on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, destroyed and return of its residents to it is almost impossible.
Introducing its recent report, “Yarmouk Camp, Abandoned Pain”, Euro-Med said at a press conference held in cooperation with Hikaya Center for Civil Society Development that the findings of its investigation of the violations of the human rights in Yarmouk Camp during the past seven years –since the beginning of the Syrian crisis- that the camp has suffered “systematic damage” and “deliberate destruction” leaving 80 percent of its buildings and infrastructure totally destroyed.
As a result, it said, return of the refugees to Yarmouk Camp became almost impossible.
The number of Palestinians living in Yarmouk refugee camp, the largest refugee community in Syria, declined from 144,000 when the Syrian crisis started in 2012 to 6,300 by mid-2018, after the Syrian army regained control of the camp in May. Over 200 refugees were killed during the long army siege of the camp after armed opposition groups took control of it in December 2012.
Euro-Med also said that decline in services provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) due to its financial shortfall following a big slash in the United State contribution will exacerbate if the international community does not fully implement its commitments stipulated in the recent Rome conference and the New York conference to contribute to funding UNRWA‘s work.
Twenty countries pledged at the New York conference to pay about $375 million to fill the gap in the Agency’s funding. However, UNRWA received only $50 million, with the deficit currently standing at over $200 million.
The continued reduction to UNRWA‘s work means that the Agency can hardly provide basic services for more than 5,800,000 registered Palestinian refugees. Also, 525,000 students may be deprived of their right to education, 702 UNRWA schools closed and 143 clinics shut down. It also means that contracts of 30,000 UNRWA staff may be terminated, not to mention other areas affecting 58 refugee camps, said Euro-Med in a statement at the press conference.
“Recently, 93% of Palestinians in Syria were classified as vulnerable or severely vulnerable. 34% of Palestinian refugees in West Bank Camps lack food security. Half a million refugees in the Gaza Strip live below the poverty line.”
It considered the UNRWA crisis as part of the international community crisis, stressing that the international community should share the collective legal and humanitarian responsibility and tackle the refugees‘ crisis, noting that it failed to implement the General Assembly Resolution 194 that provides for the return of the 1948 refugees to their homeland they were forced out from after Israel’s creation.
M.K.
