Crossroads of Crisis: Yarmouk, Syria, and the Predicament of the Palestinian Refugees

Abstract

In February 2014, I visited the Yarmouk District in Damascus, which is largely populated by Palestinians. I met the Palestinian refugee Um Ahmed at a food distribution center. She and others were receiving food parcels from UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) after months of extreme deprivation in the midst of the Syrian War. She was asking questions: “I am a Palestinian refugee,” she said. “What is our fate?” she demanded, and then added: “What are we supposed to do, where are we supposed to go? What is the solution for us Palestinians?”

The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on February 25, 2014, and edited in July 2015.