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SA activists to raise funds for Yarmouk

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A South African coalition of Palestinian solidarity activists on Wednesday began shooting a video campaign in order to create public awareness around the situation in Al-Yarmouk. In April 2015, the Al-Yarmouk refugee camp was besieged by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS) militia. The Yarmouk camp has been home to Palestinian refugees since 1957 following the Nakba. This camp housed the largest Palestinian refugee community in Syria. There were schools and hospitals located within the camp and currently these facilities are no longer standing.

Speaking to VOC News, Thakira Desai, a member of the National Coalition for Palestine (NC4P) said the campaign is driven towards assisting those who are currently trapped inside the Al-Yarmouk refugee camp.

“The campaign will also assist those who have left the camp, who are currently living in the war zone,” she said.

Those citizens who were able to flee the camp have fled, but these citizens are still caught between the Syrian civil war and the war engineered by ISIS.

“The last record states that there are only 18,000 civilians still in the camp of which 3500 are children,” Desai added.

Whilst most people have fled, others are still trapped within the camp as fighting continues on a daily basis. Those civilians who are trapped within the camp have no access to leave. Civilians as well as children are being used as human shields between the armed forces.

“Yarmouk is a death camp, there is no access to healthcare, there is no electricity and water and the aid going into the camp has stopped,” Desai continued.

“We (NC4P) are raising funds via a donation account that by the end of the week will be up and running,” Desai went further.

“The campaign that we will run will be a video outlet and it will describe exactly what is happening inside Yarmouk”.

NC4P has also approached big companies in order to ask for personal donations to assist in sending aid to the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.

“No aid is currently going into the camp and that is why the situation is so deplorable,” Desai said.

“A kilogram of rice is about 45 US dollars”.

Palestinians fled their homeland in search of safety from the occupation. Their home in Syria has now also been destroyed.

Members of the public are encouraged to donate funds to the NC4P as they roll out their campaign in aid of those civilians in and outside the Al-Yarmouk refugee camp.

The United Nations has called for an end to the massacre currently taking place in the camp. At this moment, no aid is going into the camp and citizens are dying of starvation and dying as a result of the fighting between the various armed forces.

For more information, visit the National Coalition For Palestine page on Facebook. VOC (Umarah Hartley)


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