4 July 2007
After the UN refugee agency called for the immediate evacuation of at least a dozen seriously ill Palestinians -- mostly young children – who live in refugee makeshift camps in Baghdad and on the Iraqi side of the deserted border with Syria, Brazil offered to take them in, UN officials said yesterday.
"Without evacuation and life-saving medical help, they could die or suffer lifelong complications," said Ron Redmond, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), about the Palestinian refugees stranded in war-ridden Iraq. "We currently have 12 cases in urgent need of medical evacuation, the youngest just 15 months old," he added.
Recently, a UNHCR team visited the isolated Al Waleed camp near the border with Syria and found that several young people among the 1,071 displaced Palestinians there were in serious need of specialized medical treatment. Among the ailing were a youth with a hole in his heart, two children with Hodgkin's disease, one youth about to lose his leg because of a vascular disease and a young man with severe diabetes who is losing his sight.
But Redmond said there were more cases in need of urgent attention.
"We have also identified a two-year-old with cerebral palsy who has very low immunity, is in urgent need of physical therapy and has stopped eating. Another child, a 13-year-old girl suffering from a spinal injury, will be permanently paralyzed from the neck down unless she gets treatment soon," he said, adding that the girl's mother died a few years ago, her father was murdered in January and her home was burned by militia.
Other urgent cases were discovered in Baghdad -- a 15-month-old boy in danger of paralysis from the waist down, and a 14-year-old boy who has had 13 operations but suffers from severe urinary and bladder problems.
Despite efforts of UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to provide proper medical care, unsanitary conditions in the compounds, shortages of medical staff and mounting fears of attacks have led to the acutely deteriorating health of Palestinian refugees in camps inside and outside Baghdad.
The UN refugee agency said that Palestinians in Baghdad refuse to seek medical care because they are afraid for their safety. UNHCR also reported that in extreme cases some people, who refused to visit medical facilities because they feared attacks, died in their homes as a consequence.
There are about 1,450 Palestinians living in dire conditions at Al Waleed and Al Tanf camp, and up to 13,000 still living in Baghdad from an original population of 34,000 in 2003, according to the UN. Those remaining in Iraq have no access to another country, and no communities to flee to inside Iraq. In the meantime, they continue to be targeted.
Dire conditions are also found in Al Tanf camp where almost 400 displaced Palestinians live amidst rising summer temperatures and without hope for a solution.
"This is the hell that we have read about it in holy books. We are dying slowly and feel the world has forgotten us. How long are we going to stay in this desert?” asked one camp resident. "Is the world so small and unable to rescue 10,000 Palestinian refugees from the killing, torture and hell of Iraq and the prison of this camp?"
As in Al Waleed, camp residents are facing medical problems and shortages. One Palestinian woman here suffers from kidney problems and had to be medically evacuated to Syria two weeks ago to receive urgent treatment. She had to leave her two young daughters alone in the camp because she was not allowed to take them along.
Life in the camp appears to be particularly hard on women. "In addition to everything else that we have to do, including feeding our children, teaching them and above all holding up patiently so that life goes on, our husbands are so stressed out and quite often they vent their anger on the women," said another female refugee living at Al Tanf camp.
Earlier this year, UNHCR and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) set up five tented classrooms for the 122 children living in the camp and this has helped raise their morale. "The school was a great initiative but still our children have no future in this desert. They have no touch with the outside developed world," said one mother.
Yesterday the government of Brazil offered to resettle about 100 Palestinians living in Iraq starting in mid-September. About 22 Palestinian families are excepted to settle in Sao Paulo state and 18 families in Rio Grande do Sul, said UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis.
As part of the resettlement, Brazil plans to integrate the Palestinians into Brazilian society. Prior to departing, each group of roughly 30 people will be extensively briefed, culturally sensitized and offered Portuguese languages lessons by Brazilian UNCHR staff. All of the refugees will receive accommodations, furniture and material assistance for up to 24 months, with unaccompanied elderly refugees being settled in homes where medical treatment will be provided, according to UNHCR.
In recent years Brazil, Canada and New Zealand have been the only countries to offer resettlement to Palestinian refugees from Iraq, according to UNHCR.
Labels: Brazil, Iraq
6 July 2007
