For the approximately 18,000 Palestinians remaining in Syria’s besieged Yarmouk refugee camp, life is a horrifying daily struggle, a veritable hell on earth. Earlier this month, Amnesty International released a report confirming this dystopian reality. The report reveals that 128 people have died from starvation since last July; the inevitable outcome of a military blockade imposed on the camp by Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad. The purpose of the siege is to root out foreign Sunni jihadist militias, e.g. Jabhat al-Nusra, who now occupy the camp. These militants have set up bases within the camp, and have been able to recruit new fighters from within the vulnerable Palestinian population in order to further their goal of toppling the Assad regime. Rumors of people resorting to eating grass and stray cats and dogs while trying to avoid being killed by sniper fire or Assad’s crude yet lethal barrel bombs are now tragically commonplace. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the organization charged with bringing in humanitarian aid to the famished population, has been unable to consistently carry out its mission, as firefights, broken truces, and Syrian military obstructions have impeded its access to the camp. Amnesty and others are now claiming Assad is using starvation as a weapon of war, a distinctly savage strategy in a war where barbarism and brutality have become the norm.
Source: nationalinterest.org
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