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Fahmeh and Mansoura: Fahmeh and Mansoura, two small encampments between Nablus and Jenin, have perhaps the largest per capita concentration of UNRWA-registered refugees outside the official refugee camps in the West Bank. Fahmeh is home to 39 refugee families; 20 refugee families live in Mansoura village. Only three families in both villages are not registered refugees. Most of the original residents came from Gaza or are Bedouin and settled in Fahmeh and Mansoura in 1967 or the early 1970s. With a near-total unemployment rate, no adjacent available farmland, sub-standard housing, no shops and few services, life for more than 400 women, children and men in these two encampments is desolate and grim. The refugees receive minimal emergency food assistance from UNRWA. Otherwise, they fend for themselves in a harsh economic climate.
Residents say that unemployment is more than 95 percent. The bulk of the available work force used to have jobs in Israel; since this intifada began nearly three years ago, the workers have been prohibited from entering Israel and have not been able to find replacement jobs locally. In Mansoura, about 40 men work as local farm labourers for NIS 20 a day, but no more than 10 days a month, according to the head of the village council. In Fahmeh, a few men work in a tiny stone-cutting factory owned by a camp resident. In both villages, 56 families (out of a total of 59 refugee families) qualify for UNRWA food assistance. Eligible families receive emergency food parcels every few months. Others receive coupons and go to emergency food distributions in other villages in the area. Periodic UNRWA emergency cash payments to the neediest have stopped, as they have in many places due to budgetary constraints. Women and children say that so acute is their poverty that they regularly have to forage for food in local village dumps hoping to find food or re-saleable scrap iron or aluminium.
All residents interviewed said that the flour, rice, oil and other foodstuffs distributed by UNRWA runs out weeks or months before the next distribution. By the standards of most societies in developing countries with a variable climate, the houses of Fahmeh and Mansoura would be judged as unfit for human habitation. The houses, mostly two- or three-room, unheated, concrete-block structures, have changed little since they were built to house Jordanian army troops before 1967.
Many houses have running water and electricity, but sewage flows into cesspits. Roofs leak and interior walls and floors are soaked for the duration of the rainy season, frequently causing electrical short circuits. Interior walls in some dwellings are blackened by smoke from winter heating fires. In some, sleeping mattresses are placed directly on uncovered concrete floors because residents cannot afford beds. Many residents cover window openings with plastic because they cannot afford windows. Water is supplied from wells in Araba. Electricity has been supplied by Jenin municipality only for the past five months. There is no rubbish collection. Rubbish and garbage is dumped on waste ground close to the houses. A Palestinian Authority mobile health clinic visits Mansoura and Fahmeh two days a week for two hours a day. Residents say they must pay NIS 70 a month in order to be treated; for many, the fee is prohibitive. But they also point out that the mobile PA clinic is insufficient for the number of people seeking basic care. Some refugees are registered with the Jenin Health Clinic and travel about 15 kilometres to get there. The nearest accessible hospital is in Jenin; Nablus hospitals are considered out-of-reach because of longer driving time and difficult checkpoints. Serious medical cases are sometimes treated at a Palestinian Red Crescent Society clinic in Araba, but some residents report that they have been turned away by that clinic. A number of village girls attend the UNRWA school in Araba. Teachers say they suffer greater financial hardships than the other students. Other children go to a Palestinian Authority School in Fahmeh.
Residents complain that IDF mechanized infantry patrols frequently drive through the villages, shooting randomly in the air or at buildings. Adding to Fahmeh’s problems is that it still carries a social stigma from its reputation – which is unproven – as a village that housed collaborators during the first intifada. In conversation with Palestinians elsewhere in the West Bank, mention of Fahmeh frequently elicits the response: "collaborator village". News stories have repeated rumours that the village was protected by Israeli security forces some years ago to shield the collaborators. These reports and rumours, whether true or not, have no apparent relevance to the poverty and living conditions in Fahmeh today. Fahmeh and Mansoura residents tell visitors that the villages, although close to a main north-south highway, have been forgotten by the international aid community. "People always come here and ask questions and take pictures, but nothing ever changes," one woman said. "To do your report, all you have to do is look at this house. That tells all the story," one man said. All residents interviewed pleaded urgently for an increase in food assistance and for any help in repairing dwellings. |
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