Daily life in the 60-year conflict zone
13:58 / 15.04.2010 Despite the serious efforts of Quartet of the Middle East last month, no improvement was achieved in the settlement of Palestine-Israel conflict. Obtaining independence and the fate of millions of Palestinians is still urgent for Palestine. APA’s correspondent together with a group of journalists visited a refugee camp of Palestinians on the West Bank of the Jordan River and prepared a report.
The life in the refugee camp shows that the problems of the Palestinian refugees are increasing. There are 750,000 Palestinian refugees on the West Bank of the Jordan river, they have been settled in 19 camps. Representative of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Yusif Khasia says the Palestinians settled in Amari refugee camp still hope that their problems will be solved and they will return to their lands. UNRWA assists the refugees in education and healthcare. The young people are getting secondary education in the refugee camp. Khasia says the refugees have limited opportunities to continue education, get higher education, because they do not have opportunity to study on their own expenses.
UNRWA representative noted that the biggest problem of the refugees was connected with housing. The refugee camp that we visited covers 22 hectare area and is destined for 6500 refugees. Families consisting of 10 or sometimes 20 members live in small houses. There is very little distance between houses, children are obliged to play on the sand of the road. One of the main problems of the Palestinian refugees is unemployment, the youth suffer from this problem more.
UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness says when the agency began to assist the Palestinian refugees, this program was destined for several years.
“Then it was supposed that the conflict would be solved soon and the refugees would return home. 60 years have passed, but the conflict has not been solved yet. All the refugees irrespective of their citizenship have an opportunity to choose – stay here, return home or move to a third country. Palestinian refugees do not have such an opportunity as Palestine has not obtained full independence,” he said.
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