The Action Group for the Palestinians of Syria (AGPS) slammed the Assad regime for preventing residents of the Yarmouk camp in southern Damascus from digging out bodies of people from the rubble the devastated suburb.
In a press release issued on Sunday, the London-based monitoring group said: “According to private sources, over 80 cadavers have been left under the mounds of rubble into which civilian homes have been turned in the warfare, particularly in Al-Uruba Street, south of Yarmouk, and the western corners of the camp.”
“The list reportedly includes bodies of civilians and ISIS gunmen who were hiding in the area. Sometime earlier, the Syrian authorities pulled the bodies of pro-government gunmen from the area.”
The Group went on to say that the “Syrian security forces obstructed the work of the Palestinian Red Crescent staff members who attempted to get into the area and pull the dead bodies.”
“The Syrian authorities claimed the ban comes on account that the cadavers’ identities remain unknown and that none of their relatives has showed up in the area.”
“AGPS calls on the international human rights institutions to immediately step in and pressurize the Syrian government to green-light taking out Palestinian dead bodies from underneath the debris.”
In a separate press release, the Group said that Palestinian-Syrian Moataz Mohammed Bakr, 35, is still in the custody of the Assad regime. Bakr has been detained since January 9, 2013 while he was on his way to the “Returnees Refugee Camp” in Homs province.
The Group noted that it receives lots of information about the Palestinian-Syrian detainees despite the difficulties in documentation as the Assad regime continues to withhold information about the fate of detainees in its prisons. It said that well over 1,724 Palestinian-Syrians are still being held by the Assad regime, including 108 female detainees.
Palestinian-Syrians are still waiting for the opportunity to return to their homes in the Yarmouk refugee camp. They have fled their homes to escape the ground attack the Assad regime forces launched with Russian aerial support to recapture the Damascus suburb from the ISIS extremist group. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
