dagblog - Comments for "Portrait of despair: Thousands queue for UN food parcels in Yarmouk, Damascus"

So it's like the gazillions

jollyroger — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 23:24:07 +0000

In reply to U.N. Denies Altering Image of

So it's like the gazillions of orcs in the Two Towers....?

O/T:Just a reminder, like the Kings of Gondor, the Kings of the Visigoths age very slowly (take THAT, tmac....medicare perch indeed)

U.N. Denies Altering Image of

artappraiser — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 19:52:57 +0000

In reply to Portrait of despair: Thousands queue for UN food parcels in Yarmouk, Damascus

U.N. Denies Altering Image of Palestinian Refugees in Damascus
By Robert Mackey, The Lede @ nytimes.com, March 11, 2014
A spokesman for the United Nations agency that provides assistance to Palestinian refugees rejected claims that an arresting image of thousands of people waiting for food distribution on a ruined street in Damascus recently had been digitally altered.

Chris Gunness, the spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or Unrwa, said in a statement on Tuesday that the photograph — which is being used in a social media campaign to draw attention to the suffering of refugees trapped by fighting in a camp in the Syrian capital — has not “been ‘photoshopped’ or tampered with in any way. It is entirely genuine.”

Mr. Gunness, who has expressed his personal outrage at conditions in the Yarmouk Camp, is leading an effort on the social media platform Thunderclap to get the image displayed on a giant screen in Times Square by generating 23 million retweets, matching Syria’s prewar population [.....]

Syria's liberators face

artappraiser — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 04:12:35 +0000

In reply to Portrait of despair: Thousands queue for UN food parcels in Yarmouk, Damascus

Syria's liberators face Palestine legacy
Ramzy Baroud, Asia Times Online, Mar 4, '14

Summary: Arab media and politicians champion the rights of Syria's suffering civilians with the same fervor that they back the Palestinian cause, but none mention the rape and revulsion Syrian refugees face in their countries. The region's muted reaction to the siege of Palestinian refugees in Syria's Yarmouk camp is further testament to the fragile state of "Arab solidarity".

This Guardian article of Feb.

artappraiser — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 19:48:06 +0000

In reply to I had put a comment with a

This Guardian article of Feb. 26 clears up some of this:

UNRWA's food parcels – which include tinned meat, rice and lentils – can feed a family of up to eight people for 10 days.

The agency is warning that the degradation of conditions inside the camp could lead to the spread of disease. There have been reports of mothers dying in childbirth, and families surviving on animal feed, according to a spokesman. The UN has sent in 10,000 doses of polio vaccine in the past month.

The UN security council adopted a resolution last week calling on all parties in Syria to take steps to facilitate the efforts of the UN and other humanitarian agencies to provide relief to civilians, "including by promptly facilitating safe and unhindered humanitarian access to populations in need of assistance in all areas under their control."

However, said Grandi, the situation on the ground was "very messy, very localised, a lot of local dynamics at play". Each distribution required "very complex negotiations with a lot of different groups".

and

United Nations workers have delivered about 7,000 food parcels over recent weeks, following negotiations between the Syrian government, rebel forces and Palestinian factions within the camp. The most recent delivery, of 450 parcels, was on Wednesday. The UN acknowledges that the level of aid is a "drop in the ocean".

Yarmouk has been cut off since last July. Many residents are now weak and severely malnourished, as well as being exposed to the risk of disease, or death and injury from fighting.

and

The distribution point is a "no-man's land", overlooked by sniper positions, between a Syrian government-controlled checkpoint and the camp's interior. "What about those who cannot come [to the distribution point]?" said Grandi. "I'm pretty sure there are many people who have never received assistance in the last month because they are too weak, or maybe elderly, or unaccompanied children."

Also note from the header:

has been under blockade for month

What is still not clear is the story of the picture if it was indeed taken on Jan. 31, i.e., how much aid was distributed that day, if any, or if they were lining up for like, some kind of registration or whatever. Because Jan. 31 is not reported anywhere as a date they managed to distribute some of the approx. 7,000 parcels they have distributed in total over the whole period. Because the U.N. knows it could not handle the vast needs in one trip, I can imagine them setting up a system where people get like a number and then that serves as a sort of queue. So that everyone does not have to line up again on every distribution the U.N. can manage to make.

Also,comes to mind when you are handing out parcels for a "family of 8 for 10 days" but cannot get in enough to aid all at once, you really do need some sort of I.D. process for fairness, to avoid black market type ops, to avoid only the fittest getting aid and then selling it or giving out unfairly?

Here's the website of the

artappraiser — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 23:25:13 +0000

In reply to Portrait of despair: Thousands queue for UN food parcels in Yarmouk, Damascus

Here's the website of the U.N. organization specifically dedicated to aiding all the Palestinian refugees in camps:

http://www.unrwa.org/

They are putting update info.on Yarmouk there, though I don't know how helpful to understanding the particulars of the situation, it's more like more P.R. about trying to get in.

Note it has an "how you can help" link:

http://www.unrwa.org/how-you-can-help

Well, that's a bit of an

jollyroger — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 19:18:04 +0000

In reply to I had put a comment with a

Well, that's a bit of an improvement (as if....)

Edit to add: on re-read, I am still unable to come away with any impression other than that on some particular day, when all those people came waiting for food, all but 450 went away empty handed...

I had put a comment with a

artappraiser — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 19:13:46 +0000

In reply to Am I to understand that for

I had put a comment with a question to that effect but then read their article more carefully and deleted it. It is badly written. It reports at the end the two days they could get in to do 7,000 parcels, 18 January and 20 February (plus a huge load of polio vaccines and sundry.) Oddly, neither of them coincide with the Jan. 31 date for the photo, so I still don't get it, it's confusing, not well done. Does that mean they lined up all these people on Jan. 31 but didn't give them anything on that day?

But overall, the article is meant like this, I think: we got in this day and that day and managed to do this, and then yesterday we got in for a few hours to do this little more (450), but boy, we really really need to get in some more.

Also on second thought, I deleted my question too because I had read about different types of parcels and they could be as large as a month's supply if just basic nutrition, so I shouldn't presume by just the number, that it's like just a day or week of food each.

Am I to understand that for

jollyroger — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 19:02:43 +0000

In reply to Syria: UN agency delivers

Am I to understand that for that sea of need the agency delivered 450 packages?

Oh, sure,

jollyroger — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 19:01:01 +0000

In reply to Photo available here much

Oh, sure, thanks-a-million...the "cropped" version brought me to my knees (and not for purposes of prayer...)

I guess I'm a victim of "the CNN effect"

Oh shit....that's all, just, "oh shit" (I am now a graduate of the Richard Day school of commenting-not that there's anything wrong with that...)

Thanks AA The poor people.

Resistance — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 12:12:47 +0000

In reply to Photo available here much

Thanks AA The poor people. Horrific? Very sad .