Refugees also said it was very difficult to get food or water from the camp.
The Palmyra refugees who had escaped from Rukban camp returned to their town and told reporters how little human life is valued in a camp actually controlled by the militants.
Rukban is in the 55-kilometer zone around the American military base in the area of El Tanfa (on the border of Syria with Jordan), which is controlled by the American military. Russian military, representatives of the Russian and Syrian Foreign Ministries have repeatedly stated that the situation in the camp is close to a humanitarian disaster.
“Americans were standing at the base of El Thanf. I have not seen Americans myself. The militants are working for the Americans. I remember a case: two young children were burned playing by the furnace. We wanted to show them to the medics. They wouldn’t let us go anywhere for two days. The children died in our hands”, – said Khaled Rashid, who spent some time in Rukban.
He said it was very difficult to get food or water at the camp, while the militants even get medicine for free. Rasheed worked at the camp digging pits and unloading fruits and vegetables to at least feed his family. He said that it was not safe to move around the camp: the guerrillas could kill the refugee for no reason, even when he went to get water.
Another refugee who escaped from Rookban, Muhammad Abdullah, compared his life there with “terrible bullying”. He said that everything in the camp was very expensive, including food. He said he had seen humanitarian aid vehicles, but they had never made it to Rukban.
“A scone costs a thousand pounds, a kilo of tomatoes – 700 pounds <…> To leave the camp you have to pay a very large sum – 300 thousand. I could not pay. I paid 30,000 and went out. I have no words to say anything about these people. God sees everything. The camp has 70,000 people. I was there for four years. I went out a year ago. I saw the Americans, they were passing by the camp”, – Abdullah explained.