The United Nations considered that impeding convoys bringing aid to the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria may amount to a war crime.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said: “Over the past four months numerous attempts by the UN and other organizations to bring convoys of food and medical aid to malnourished children, women and elderly people close to starvation in Yarmouk, have been thwarted, and very little aid was getting through during the nine months prior to that."
Ms. Pillay highlighted that starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited under international law and may amount to a war crime.
She stressed that objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, are protected under international law, and added that "attacking, destroying, removing or rendering useless such objects are prohibited."
A news release issued by the High Commissioner’s office (OHCHR) said there have been reports of a number of deaths from starvation, as well as from the consumption of rotten food, and because of the chronic shortage of medical supplies and expertise for sick and injured people and pregnant women trapped in the camp.
The UN added that the situation is compounded by the lack of electricity and severe shortage of water and that the civilians also continue to be killed by ongoing fighting and sporadic aerial attacks.
The siege imposed on the Yarmouk camp for nearly 190 days caused the death of more than 54 refugees of hunger.
For its part, Thabet organization for the right of return stressed that it supports and will participate in the popular movement, organized by the Committee of Palestinians of Syria in Lebanon in collaboration with civil and human rights institutions in solidarity with the Palestinians in the besieged Yarmouk camp.
Thabet in a statement called for putting an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people in Syria camps, lifting the Yarmouk siege, and neutralizing the camps in the ongoing conflict.
It has also asked the international community and the United Nations organizations, especially the International Committee of the Red Cross and UNRWA, to take serious moves and find means of channeling humanitarian aid to the camp.
The organization called on the United Nations to intervene to lift the siege on the Yarmouk refugee camp and other camps and urged the Arab League to shoulder its responsibilities and protect civilians in the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria
Meanwhile, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and 50 other international human rights organizations, in a joint statement, called on the participants in the Geneva meetings 2 to lift the siege imposed on the Yarmouk camp.
