Thousands of Refugees Blocked From Receiving Food Aid in Syria

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

DAMASCUS, Syria – According to the United Nations and activists, food aid deliveries to thousands of people living in a blockaded area in southern Damascus have been cut off after a truce collapsed and fights once again broke out between Syrian rebel groups and regime forces. The Yarmouk district of Damascus is home to thousands of Palestinian refugees.

Residents of the Yarmouk district of Damascus line up in hopes of receiving food aid. (Photo courtesy the Irish Examiner)

Yarmouk is the largest of nine Palestinian camps in Syria. Since the camp’s was founded in 1957, it has evolved into a densely populated residential district, only five miles from the centre of Damascus. The camp has been home to several generations of Palestinian refugees. Before the conflict more than 160,000 Palestinian refugees lived in Yarmouk, around 18,000 Palestinian refugees remain in the district.

Chris Gunness, a spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Damascus, urged both parties to “immediately allow” delivers of food and medical aid to be resumed in order to fight the malnutrition epidemic in the area. On Monday Gunness said the United Nations “remains deeply concerned about the desperate humanitarian situation in Yarmouk, and the fact that increasing tensions and resort to armed force have disrupted its efforts to alleviate the desperate plight of civilians,” Gunness said on Monday. He urged both regime and rebel fighters to facilitate “safe and unhindered humanitarian access”

Over the course of the three year old conflict the Yarmouk area of Damascus has seen some of the worst violence in the nation’s capital. The fighting has led to severe shortages in food and medical supplies leading to severe malnutrition, illness and hunger.

Israa al-Masri, a young boy who lived in the Palestinian neighborhood of Yarmouk in Damascus, Syria was one of thousands of Syrian children to suffer from hunger in the region, he passed away from a hunger-related illness, on Jan. 11, 2014 (Photo courtesy of CBS News)

On Tuesday Filippo Grandi, the Commissioner General of UNRWA, called the extent of damages to the refugees’ homes in the Yarmouk area shocking, he said “the devastation is unbelievable. There is not one single building that I have seen that is not an empty shell by now.”

On Saturday rebel fighter claimed that Assad loyalists were sneaking weapons into Yarmouk under the pretext of the joint patrols, delaying food distribution and arresting young men waiting for food parcels from the United Nations. The next day rebels returned to the area and clashes broke out between regime and al-Nusra and other rebel fighters.

In total, the United Nations has distributed 7,708 food parcels to the Yarmouk district’s 18,000 registered Palestinian refugees. According to activist groups, there are thousands more displaced Syrians living in the district suffering from malnutrition, illness and hunger as a result of food shortages.

For more information please see:

Al Jazeera – Thousands of People Living In Blockaded District in Southern Damascus Are Cut Off From Aid As Truce Collapses – 04 March 2014

Irish Examiner – Thousands ‘Slowly Dying’ in Yarmouk Camp – 01 March 2014

CBS News – U.N. Renews Call For Syria Regime, Rebels To Allow Aid Into Yarmouk Camp For Starving Refugees – 26 February 2014

The Guardian – Queue for Food In Syria’s Yarmouk Camp Shows Desperation Of Refugees – 26 February 2014

Former Nazi Auschwitz Guard Not Fit to Stand Trial Due to Dementia

by Tony Iozzo
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

BERLIN, Germany – A German court ruled that a former guard at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp is unfit to stand trial.

A gate to the Auschwitz Death Camp translates to “Work Sets You Free.” (Photo courtesy of the Washington Post

Hans Lipschis, 94, was determined to not be able to stand trial as he is suffering from dementia. Judges at the Ellwangen court in Germany ruled that Lipschis would not be able to understand the proceedings following the charges of being an accessory to murder during his time as a guard as Auschwitz.

“The court has refused to open the trial. The chamber is of the opinion that the 94-year-old is incapable of standing trial. It bases this judgment on its own personal impression and the opinion of a psychiatrist,” a court statement reported.

Lipschis was arrested last May. He had immigrated to the United States in 1956, but was deported in 1983 after he was accused of concealing his past as a Nazi officer. Lipschis avoided prosecution for over thirty years, as prosecutors were unable to link him to a specific crime or victim. However, the recent conviction of Ivan Demjanjuk, a death camp guard, provided a legal precedent for prosecution of Nazi war criminals without specific evidence. In 2011, a German court convicted Demjanjuk of playing a role in the murder of 28,000 Jews at a Nazi camp in Poland.

Lipschis worked as a Nazi guard at Auschwitz from 1941 to 1943, during which twelve prisoner convoys arrived at the extermination camp. Approximately 10,000 of those prisoners were determined unfit for work and executed in the gas chamber upon arrival.

The complaint against Lipschis alleged that he had been a member of the Waffen SS, a Nazi unit that specialized in “systematically exploiting and murdering people because of their race … and other characteristics.” The complaint further stated that Lipschis had been assigned to two different death camps during his tenure.

Lipschis admitted last year to the German newspaper Die Welt that he had been a cook at Auschwitz and stated that he later left the camp in order to fight on the Eastern Front, although he could not remember which he had been assigned to.

Roughly 1.5 million people were killed at Auschwitz. The deceased were mostly Jewish people, but also Roma, Poles and various other groups had been murdered as well.

For more information, please see:

ABC News – German Court Says Nazi Suspect Unfit For Trial – 28 February 2014

AP News – German Court Says Nazi Suspect Unfit For Trial – 28 February 2014

Chicago Tribune – Suspected Auschwitz Guard Found Unfit For Trial – 28 February 2014

Washington Post – German Court Says Nazi Suspect Unfit For Trial – 28 February 2014