BEIRUT, 4 June 2007 (IRIN) - The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) launched a global appeal for US$12.7 million on Monday in an effort to raise funds to meet the humanitarian needs of more than 27,000 Palestinians displaced from the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. Since 20 May the Lebanese army has laid siege to the camp after Islamist militants from a relatively unknown group called Fatah al-Islam killed dozens of its soldiers. The army has intensified its bombardment of the camp since 1 June, describing its actions as the “beginning of the end”. Read more about UNRWA appeals for $12.7m as camp clashes spread south
NAHRAL-BARED, 3 June 2007 (IRIN) - Aid agencies and emergency services have been unable to access the besieged Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon for three days to either evacuate the injured or deliver vital supplies of water and food to trapped residents. “If we don’t get into camp today or tomorrow the situation will be really critical,” Dr Yousef Assad of the Palestine Red Crescent (PRC) told IRIN on Saturday. Read more about Three-day bombardment of camp cuts off vital aid supplies to terrified residents
BEIRUT, 31 May 2007 (IRIN) - With no immediate end in sight to the stand-off between the army and Islamist militants in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, and with neighbouring Beddawi camp already full to bursting, aid agencies have delivered relief to several hundred families displaced further to the east and south of the country. According to figures from the UN Palestinian relief organisation UNRWA about 1,500 people, have fled Nahr al-Bared for camps located in and around Beirut. Read more about Aid agencies assist families displaced from Nahr al-Bared camp
LEBANON, 30 May 2007 (IRIN) - The heaviest fighting in a week between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam militants in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon has raised security concerns for humanitarian workers delivering relief to thousands of Palestinians remaining in the camp. “We have had access every day for the past few days to deliver humanitarian assistance but we remain very worried about security conditions for the civilians in the camp,” Virginia La Guardian, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Beirut told IRIN. Read more about Heavy Nahr al-Bared fighting continues; UN to vote on Hariri tribunal
BEIRUT, 28 May 2007 (IRIN) - Heavy overnight bombardment on Friday of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp by the Lebanese army killed at least four civilians and injured dozens, with eye-witnesses describing scenes of devastation after the military’s week-long clashes with Islamist militants in the once densely populated camp. “Nahr al-Bared looks like Leningrad,” Bilal Aslan, a commander in the military wing of the secular Palestinian faction Fatah, who has spent the week inside the camp, told IRIN, referring to the German World War II siege of the Russian city. Read more about Nahr al-Bared is a ghost town, smelling of death
BEIRUT, 28 May 2007 (IRIN) - Thousands of elderly and sick refugees in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp and neighbouring Badawi camp in northern Lebanon are in urgent need of chronic disease medication currently unavailable to aid agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told IRIN. ICRC representatives at the military checkpoint to the south of the camp say thousands of people are in need of treatment for chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney failure. Read more about Chronic disease sufferers in refugee camps urgently need medication
The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned that journalists have been prevented since Monday from entering a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon during clashes between Islamist militants and the Lebanese Army. The Lebanese Army restricted public access to the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, near Tripoli, the day after fighting broke out between Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese Army. Journalists, both local and foreign, are covering the clashes and their effect on more than 30,000 Palestinian refugees caught up in the fighting Read more about Lebanese Army imposes restrictions on coverage of camp siege
NAHRAL-BARED, 24 May 2007 (IRIN) - Yousef Abu Radi, 12, was hit by shrapnel when a civilian bus fleeing Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon, came under fire on Wednesday afternoon. Dozens of civilians have been killed in five days of fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam, a radical Islamist group based in the camp. At least 50 soldiers and militants have also been killed. Read more about "On the way to the hospital I realised that my mother had died"
BEIRUT, May 24 (IPS) - Palestinian factions inside Lebanon have been in a quandary as to how to assist the more than 30,000 residents of the densely populated Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon trapped after three days of fighting between Lebanese Army units and members of a Sunni Islamist group, Fatah al-Islam. Ashraf Abu-Khorj, a camp resident, spoke to IPS in the middle of the shelling on the second day of fighting. Khorj said that the situation was growing increasingly dire, as he and his neighbours felt that no one was acting to put an end to the situation peacefully. Read more about 30,000 Caught in Crossfire
BEDDAWI, 23 May 2007 (IRIN) - At least 10,000 Palestinians from Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon have fled to neighbouring Beddawi camp following a lull in fighting between the Lebanese army and Islamist militants, according to an official in one of the schools over-run with an influx of displaced people. “We estimate 10,000 people have entered Beddawi camp since late afternoon yesterday [Tuesday],” Nadar Abdel Ghani, head teacher at Kawkab School in Beddawi camp, told IRIN. Read more about Thousands flee fighting as army accused of shelling relief convoy
