PLO Blames Failure of Yarmouk Camp Deal on Armed Groups

DAMASCUS,(ST)_The Palestinian Liberation Organization has underscored that the armed groups opened fire to prevent patients, elderly and university students from leaving the Yarmouk camp in Damascus.

On Thursday,The PLO slammed the armed groups’ act which breaks an agreement made to allow patients and people with special needs to leave the camp.

Director of the PLO’ s political bureau Anwa Abdulhadi said: “the armed groups are responsible for the deterioration in health status of the camp locals. Such act means that the camp’s locals are made hostages.”

He made it clear that the Palestinian people have stressed, from the very beginning of the events, the ‘neutral stance and the non- intervention in the Syrian crisis. “Making the camp free from weapons and gunmen as a prelude to the return of locals will stop the Palestinian people’s suffering.”  

Yesterday, the Palestinian national commission’s members provided ambulances to the camp to whisk patients but the armed forces opened fire and wounded three persons preventing the patients from leaving the camp.

Political investment

The Palestinian Labour Minister Ahmad Majdalani declared on Wednesday that the armed terrorist groups in Yarmouk camp had hampered the delivery of aid to persons there.

“The armed terrorist groups consider the camp as a political hostage in order to invest this matter politically at a regional level,” Majdalani said, asserting keenness on coordination with the Syrian government to facilitate the entry of aid convoy to the camp. 

He clarified that the initiative launched in August by the Popular Reconciliation Committee to solve the camp crisis aims at making the camp free from gunmen and keep the Palestinians neutralized [ not to be part in the crisis in Syria] and to guarantee the return of the locals to their homes in the camp.

The Palestinian minister’s remark was made in a meeting with Social Affairs Minister Dr. Kinda al-Shammat.

Basma Qaddour