Militant organisation Islamic State (IS) has demonstrated time and again that it is the best example of the worst that humanity has to offer. It is brutal and has made a sport of bloodshed, targeting the most vulnerable of people. True to this pattern, IS and other Islamist groups have overrun and taken over a large part of the Yarmouk refugee camp on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus, which houses dispossessed and conflict-affected Palestinians. This camp has been in existence since 1948 and, during the four-year-long Syrian civil war, there was a time when there were as many as 150,000 refugees within it but that number has shrunk to about 16,000. The Syrian government and army have been trying to support and protect the refugees in Yarmouk from enemy attack but it is proving impossible to do because the threat is not just from IS; it is from the rebels that have also encircled the area and are fighting against the Assad regime. Now that IS has managed to penetrate the camp, there is danger from all sides and the misery of these already embattled people is only just about to get from very bad to worse.
In war, it is always the most innocent of civilians who suffer the most. Those who are caught in the conflict zones, women, children and the elderly, the most helpless, all become collateral damage. Who could be more vulnerable than the already beaten down, long suffering Palestinians? That IS has found a ‘comfortable’ home for itself among the Palestinians in Yarmouck is a frightening thought. News is already emerging of IS militants going to town on the Palestinian refugees with beheadings already starting. This is beyond monstrous. And, for now, it seems there is nothing anyone, including the Syrian government, can do to protect the thousands of refugees in Yarmouk. What is really tragic is the world’s silence in what will no doubt become a massacre in Yarmouk if IS and other rebel organisations are allowed to continue their pillage of the refugee camp. Already conditions in the camp are inhumane with the residents not having access to clean water, food and medical supplies. Now with murderous goons controlling what some reports suggest is 90 percent of the camp, there seems to be little salvation for the Palestinians who are trapped inside. The Arab world is fighting against an ideology in Yemen but pays little attention to the war crimes against Muslim men, women and children who are the most defenceless. It is this silence that is deafening. *