LEBANON: UN refugee agency voices concern for Palestinians in camps as clerics visit Nahr al-Bared

Record ID: 345674

  • Title: LEBANON: UN refugee agency voices concern for Palestinians in camps as clerics visit Nahr al-Bared
  • Date: 27th May 2007
  • Summary: SLATE INFORMATION
  • Embargoed: 11th June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: Domestic Politics,Social Services / Welfare
  • Reuters ID: LVA1PC9EBRNKXO3F6CPFRZYOX260
  • Story Text: UNRWA says Beddawi camp population has doubled with the influx of displaced, while Nahr al-Bared camp suffers from shortage of vital supplies. At Nahr al-Bared camp, Palestinian clerics try to enter camp to talk with militants.

    Palestinian clerics tried on Sunday (May 27) to get access to Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon to deliver aid to refugees inside and speak with Islamist militants holed up for a week in fighting with the Lebanese army.
    Palestinian factions have been negotiating with Lebanese political and military officials to resolve the stand-off that has angered Palestinians who say innocent civilians are paying the price for the fighting.
    The army is trying to root out Fatah al-Islam which the government accuses of links to al-Qaeda and Syria. Syria has denied any links to the group.
    Many Palestinians fear the army, banned from refugee camps since 1969, will enter the camp to deal a decisive blow to the militant group.
    Tens of thousands of refugees have fled Nahr al-Bared camp, home to 40,000, in the informal truce since Tuesday. At least 10,000 have remained behind with food, water and medicine shortages.
    "We have been extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation of the refugees, obviously, ever since Sunday morning. But particularly we are concerned about those that remain in Nahr al-Bared camp. We have been seeing a continuous flow of people out of the camp since Tuesday evening. And so now we have, we believe in the region of 24,000 or 25,000 of the inhabitants have left the camp," said Richard Cook, director of the UN refugee agency UNRWA in Lebanon, in a news conference.
    UNRWA said on Sunday (May 27) the humanitarian situation is serious not only for those who are still in the camp but for those who left also.
    More than half of those who fled have found refuge in the nearby Beddawi camp. And the result has been that the camp has more than doubled its population.
    "We are, of course, concerned having been to the (Beddawi) camp today. And what we've heard before getting here about the 20,000 or so people who have joined the 18,000 original residents of the Beddawi camp. That means the camp has more than doubled in size. No camp can tolerate that immediately at least. And so all of that we are trying to do is to provide the services we need to do to make sure that everyone has a place to stay, has shelter, has food, water," said UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen Koning Abuzayd.
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