The situation continues to deteriorate for refugees stuck within the confines of Yarmouk, after large parts of the refugee camp was overrun by Islamic State (IS) radicals earlier this month. Many analysts have since condemned what has been a global inaction to address the situation, with the fiercest resistance coming from independent fighters within the camp itself.

Yarmouk used to be home to around 450 000 people, but that number has deteriorated to a meager 18 000 who are unable to rid themselves of an IS advance. The camp was established in 1957 with a specific aim of housing refugees from Palestine, following the 1948 Nakbah. Prior to the recent exodus, the camp also housed around 150 000 Palestinian refugees.

One analyst with a vested interest in the current situation is Ramzy Baroud, an author and columnist with family residing in Yarmouk. The situation has been such that he has been contacting those still situated within the IS invested camp.

Speaking to VOC Drivetime, Baroud was extremely critical at the lack of action, both on the side of government and civil society, in trying to address the plight of the refugees. This included the various parties usually united in highlighting the plight of Palestinians within the Gaza strip and occupied territories.

“The conflict has been reduced, and the solidarity with the Palestinians has been reduced to geographical areas…When all hell broke loose in Yarmouk and people were starving and dying, there was no organization, no campaigning, no conferences, nothing,” he said.

With many in the camp just a generation or two apart from the Palestinians who were displaced by the Nakbah, the current evacuation marks another major historical displacement – this time from the very land which they fled to.

“Sometimes I wonder how people go for this long, and what gives them the patience and ability to conjure up a reason to hope. The people of Yarmouk are no exception. What they are undergoing now is unprecedented, not just in Yarmouk but any Palestinian refugee camp,” he noted.

What has made the situation in the camp so dire according to Baroud, is that such suffering has been a major fixture in the lives of refugees for a number of years already, with no respite. Furthermore there were no aid groups apart from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) assisting them; an even they were now grappling with financial shortages.

This has left the innocent inhabitants of the camp stuck in the middle of ‘a rock and a hard place’: on one side an IS advance, and the other a brutal Assad regime.

“If the Assad regime is able to drop 100s of barrel bombs on Yarmouk, why aren’t they able to drop food or find a way to create a single corridor to get the 18 000, or at least some of them out?” he questioned.

Baroud said there was a need for the issue to be kept within the media glare, in a bid to force action and end the plight of the inhabitants. He also called for the matter to be kept on the agenda of the UN, to pressure them into addressing the situation.

“We have got to have the moral audacity to put everything aside and respond to the immediate need of the people who are suffering,” he added. VOC (Mubeen Banderker)