Situation in the Palestinian refugee camps/Letter from Palestine – Letter from United Arab Emirates

Letter dated 11 March 1987 from the Permanent Representative of

the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations addressed to the

Secretary-General

I have the honour, in my capacity as Chairman of the Arab Group for the month of March 1987 to transmit to you the text of the letter dated 10 March 1987 addressed to you by the Alternate Permanent Observer of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United Nations.

I should be grateful if you would have the text of this letter circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under items 38 and 80 of the preliminary list, and of the Security Council.

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*A/42/50.

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ANNEX

Letter dated 10 March 1987 from the Alternate Permanent Observer

of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United Nations

addressed to the Secretary-General

Pursuant to my letter of 24 February 1987 (see A/42/152-S/18720), the following is brought to your immediate attention to appraise you of the deteriorating situation inside the Palestinian refugee camps.

On 6 March 1987, UNRWA issued a statement under the symbol PAL/1647 informing that on 25 February and 3 March food and medical supplies entered Burj al-Barajneh and on 27 February to Shatila camp.  Rashidieh camp had received no relief supplies at all.  We would hasten to add that since those dates relief has not entered the camps.

A dangerous development was reported in the same statement, that UNRWA

"… has been unable to make property security arrangements for further convoys and has been advised to make no attempts to reach the camps over the next few days."  (our emphasis)

Further, shelling of the Palestinian refugee camps has been resumed; hence, the situation in those camps has reached a critical stage that should no longer be tolerated by the international community.  It is also clear that this situation is heading towards a new disaster for the Palestinian people.

I am instructed to call on the Security Council and the Secretary-General to take all necessary measures to put an end to the suffering of our people in the camps by utilizing all available United Nations capabilities on the ground in Lebanon in order to implement the repeated appeals of the Security Council, including the statement issued by the President of the Security Council on 13 January 1987, in which the members of the Council

"call on the parties concerned to observe an immediate cease-fire and to permit access to these camps for humanitarian purposes".

(Signed)  Dr. M. Nasser AL-KIDWA

Alternate Permanent Observer

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