The three daughters of Omar Odeh, Palestinian refugees from the Yarmuk refugee camp in Damascus who fled Syria some two months ago, sit looking out of the window of their rented apartment in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on 16 April 2013. (Photo: AFP - Mahmud Hams)
Syria’s Khan al-Sheeh camp is back in the news as fighting between the Syrian opposition and regime forces has intensified, with the camp’s residents caught in the middle.
The Khan al-Sheeh camp is home to nearly 40,000 Palestinian refugees, the second largest refugee camp in Syria after Yarmouk. Its residents are mostly tribes and clans who were expelled from northern Palestine in 1948.
The camp’s strategic location southwest of Damascus – forming a passageway between the city and many of the villages to the south, all the way to the occupied Golan – made it an early target for the opposition in their campaign to take the capital.
From the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the camp’s residents agreed to keep both sides out of the camp in order to avoid the same fate as Yarmouk, which continues to be a battleground between the opposition and the regime.
The Khan al-Sheeh camp is home to nearly 40,000 Palestinian refugees, the second largest refugee camp in Syria after Yarmouk. Its residents are mostly tribes and clans who were expelled from northern Palestine in 1948.
The camp’s strategic location southwest of Damascus – forming a passageway between the city and many of the villages to the south, all the way to the occupied Golan – made it an early target for the opposition in their campaign to take the capital.
From the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the camp’s residents agreed to keep both sides out of the camp in order to avoid the same fate as Yarmouk, which continues to be a battleground between the opposition and the regime.
But eventually the conflict spilled into the camp when opposition forces – a combination of Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Nusra Front fighters – entered in the first weeks of 2013.
Since then, the camp has been caught in the crossfire as opposition fighters made several attempts to advance toward the capital, while regime forces used cannons and rocket fire to keep them at bay, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries.
Early on Friday, May 3, camp residents appealed to both sides for a ceasefire and an end to the siege so that the injured could be evacuated. According to camp residents, the Syrian army carried out a major offensive against opposition forces in the camp.
The offensive began with an exchange of heavy fire, using cannons and rockets, which led to the deaths of six camp residents, including two children.
A few days before the latest escalation, thousands of camp residents poured out into the streets – some armed with kitchen knives – to confront the opposition after the death of Atta Saleh, a local refugee who attacked four FSA fighters with a knife to prevent them from entering his neighborhood.
The armed opposition was forced to withdraw to the fields and orchards on the outskirts of the camp in order to avoid the refugees’ wrath, thus making them an easy target for the Syrian armed forces.
Nevertheless, like most of the Palestinian camps in Syria, Khan al-Sheeh remains a contested area between the warring sides, with neither the government nor the opposition able to control it completely. This only means that the death and destruction will continue until further notice.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.