For a Syrian Refugee in Palestine: A Lifelong Plight of Unanswered Rights

[Editor's Note: This blog post by IMOW contributor  Simba Russeau was originally published on Debating Human Rights for Blog Action Day 2013.]

On December 10, 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, the first Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) -- which consists of thirty articles -- was adopted by the United Nations (UN) in response to a global need for the observance and respect of human rights regardless of religion, gender, or race.

 “The first Universal Declaration of Human Rights isn’t the first but it’s the greatest and most important. It was drafted in 1948 by the fifty-six member states of the United Nations. Our goal was to draft text that would be universally accepted as rights and freedom that applied to everyone,” Stéphane Hessel, former Ambassador to the UN and a co-drafter of the UDHR in 1948 said.

“However, people continue to contest the first human rights declaration by stating that westerners drafted it. This isn’t true. People from all areas of the world drafted it. People have said that it was drafted by the colonial powers and not by the de-colonialised people of the world. This is also false because we did take into account that some people were already independent and others not yet and that this declaration needed to apply to them also.”

At the time of it’s drafting, a mass exodus was taking place. According to the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, the 1948 Nakba forced an estimated 711,000 to 725,000 from their homelands.

Calling into question the lack of energy put into securing the homeland of Palestinians at the time of the drafting of the UDHR. “There terrible crisis in the Middle East is still not solved but the declaration on human rights lays out all the things that should be applied by Israel,” adds Hessel.

“Please don’t mix the question of implementation and the question of declaring values. The declaration declares values but it’s the responsibility of the countries, non-governmental organisations and the people to implement those values and that has not happened when it comes to the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”

Forty-six year old Omar, who requested anonymity due to security concerns, was born in Syria. In 1948, his parents fled the city of Haifa, which is the largest city in northern Israel. More than 470,000 Palestinians were residing in Syria’s before the war. Many, like Omar, hail the hospitality offered to their ancestors during their desperate search for safe haven.

“Before the war, life in Syria was good. The Syrian government and the people treated us very well. Our families, who fled in 1948, were accepted without conditions and given full rights in the country,” Omar said. “I worked for a good company as a civil engineer. Basically, we lived as if we were Syrians. I earned a good salary, we had a home and I was able to provide for my family. Our children were getting a good education.”

Omar’s life changed when fierce clashes between fighters loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the opposition engulfed the Palestinian camps of al-Yarmouk, which is nestled on the southwest outskirts of Damascus.

Tunisia: Faced With a Life in Limbo

Photo credit: NY Times

NATO's five month bombing campaign in Libya under the guise of protecting civilians has not only caused major disruptions to the lives of thousands of Libyan civilians but it has also taken its toll on countless numbers of refugees from sub-Saharan Africa who took up refuge in Libya after fleeing violence and persecution in their own countries.

In this two part series I'll introduce two young women whose lives were turned upside down when the "Arab Spring" reached Libya, and explore how they've managed to overcome their obstacles while faced with a life in limbo.

Twenty-year-old Eiman and her family was living a fairly good life in Libya before the war hit. Her parents, originally from Darfur, fled to Libya where Eiman and her brothers and sister were born.

At the time of the conflict, Eiman was in her third year of university where she was pursuing a degree in agronomy and nutrition but those dreams had to be put on hold as the situation worsened.

"We were so scared when fighting erupted between pro and anti-Gaddafi forces on my street because we could hear the guns, people were shouting and everyone was running from one area to the next trying to find safety," explains Eiman in an interview with Her Blueprint. "The security situation became unbearable when NATO started bombing and eventually we fled to Tunisia. My father who was in Benghazi working at the time of the fighting had to flee to Egypt and we're waiting for him to join us here in Tunisia."

Located in the middle of the desert along the main Libyan coastal highway leading to Tripoli just east of the southern Tunisian border crossing of Ras Ajdir, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) run Shousha camp has become home to thousands of refugees like Eiman since the outbreak of the Libyan war.

For most inhabitants of the camp, daily life has become difficult.