to 50,000 syrians are crowded together in the refugee camp of Rukban, taken by famine and disease.
There are place in no-man’s land where the scythe is play freely to their hearts content. A camp for displaced people, remote, riding the borders of Syria,Iraq yJordania, whose cry for help is being answered with an apathy overall. It’s called Rukban and is taken by famine, disease and inclement weather. Neither the syrian Government, that cut off an avenue of supply crucial, nor the opposition, neither the US, which has a headquarters near the site, are acting to prevent the disaster.
Omar, a young activist resident in the camp, alert to THE WORLD via text message: “The situation is indescribable,” “a tragedy real”, “missing basic”. Close to 50,000 people, summed up, the most displaced people of the province of central syria, Homs. Sleeping in a so-called “triangle of death” -to be found where the borders of three countries – for the tragic consequences of the siege of de facto faced by their residents.
The syrians who fled their homes by the war, from areas of opposition, they began to dwell in the barren Rukban in 2014. Despite being in the midst of the desert, and to have the access banned to Jordan -Amman alleges that among the inhabitants of Rukban might have infiltrated the Islamic State, its residents have survived until now thanks to the smuggled products, though expensive, brought from areas under government control sirius through caravans of bedouins. The men, says Omar, they are afraid to return to Homs for fear of reprisals such as those sustained by others who remained in government zone.
Thus it was until the 10 of October last, when forces asadistas, arguing that militias armed opposition operating in Rukban, they decided to punish all its residents by cutting of the root of the smuggling. The most immediate consequence is that the price of the goods barely arrive at the camp, as if that was not sufficiently expensive before, now it has skyrocketed. “The majority can’t afford them,” says Omar, “the 70% is begging and some of them already eat only what they find in the garbage”.
Rukban drag problems from months ago, the result of the inability of the actors to bring peace to the war in syria. Last month, explains the middle ‘Syria Direct’, one of the militias present on the syrian side of the border and cut off the access to the clinic operated by the UN in soil jordanian. In consequence, caesarean sections and other major operations were outside the scope of the campsites, relegated to rely on the facilities precarious of the camp and of people without medical training enough.
This crisis ended with the death of a young man of 13 years, due to malnutrition and hepatitis, and of two other children both in less than 48 hours. And while Unicef developed at the beginning of November, “one of the humanitarian operations more complex in Syria”, with dozens of vehicles and hundreds of workers handing out food, medicines and basic commodities, aid is proving insufficient. “History will judge us, and the deaths of these children, many of them from preventable causes, will be in our consciences,” says Geert Cappelaere, Unicef’s regional director.
Shukry is the nickname of one of the nurses trying to cater to those living in Rukban, without just medical equipment. “A mere anaphylaxis can kill you now, what to say of other diseases…”, says this newspaper. “The lack of medicines and food have a negative impact on all the people in the camp,” he stresses. “Every day that passes, the siege of the camp is more dangerous to the lives of children, and the situation gets worse and worse”.
Omar explains that the lack of food is so acute that residents are having to resign themselves to feed on derivatives of the flour. “You drink the water collected from the rain”, he adds. “The damage is going to be brutal for the children, lack of access to education. In exchange, they spend the day begging or collecting garbage.” In a video that circulates on the social networks, a small please help to Turkey in the middle of a sand storm: “please, trasladadnos”.
Near Rukban lies Tanf, a site on the border with Iraq that houses a barracks under american control. But, the U.S. does not seem to be for the work of attending to the syrians trapped in the area of security that have pergeñado to protect themselves from forces loyal to syrian president Bashar al-Assad. “America does not recognize us”, writes Omar, “they tell us they are of military mission”.
So, abandoned by the world, the tens of thousands of unfortunates in Rukban ask for a solution of guarantees and humanitarian aid to alleviate temporarily the effects of the lack of basic products. The last convoy officer arrived about nine months, from Jordan. The UN has announced a new shipment, although it takes weeks to retrasándolo by bureaucracy matters and weather. Rukban expected to not be too late for some of his neighbors. Russia, which has been compared Rukban with the nazi concentration camps, has accused Washington of putting the drama of the civil, while allowing 6,000 fighters opponents to remain in Rukban. The hungry will be tomorrow installed there.
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