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DAMASCUS (Islam Online) - A Canadian government report on the 410,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria indicated that they are getting poorer and feeling depressed by the neglect of the Palestinian Authority. As of 1999, the U.N. Refugee and Works Agency (UNRWA) was providing care for 3.6 million Palestinian refugees, the victims of the creation of Israel in 1948 in most of Palestine and the 1967 Israeli takeover of the rest of Palestine. UNRWA was established by U.N. decree in 1950 and depends on donations from states to provide its services. Canada is a major donor with $15 million in annual contributions. The U.S. is the biggest donor ($75 million), with Japan, Sweden and Norway contributing over $50 million together. Muslim states provide between $0 and $85,000 each, less than Korea. In Syria alone, the refugees make up 5.2 percent of the population. Most live in Damascus and its environs. The refugees in Syria fled Palestine in 1948, or are descendants of those original refugees. The Canadian study found that the refugees living in the camps (about 110,000) feel "isolated from the Palestinian leadership in the occupied territories. May feared that the talks between the PLO and Israel do not touch upon them." The Canadian ambassador in Damascus, Alexandra Bugailisikis, denied rumors that Canada was pushing for the export of Palestinian refugees to Iraq or Australia as a solution to the refugee problem. Canada heads the multilateral working group on Palestinian refugees. She said that, depending on the outcome of the PLO and Israel's negotiations on the issue, the refugees would either become citizens in their Arab host states or return to Palestine. "This is the issue that must be dealt with by the concerned parties between now and next September," she told a press conference in Damascus last week. The Israeli position is that Palestinian refugees must not be allowed to return, although there were some recent statements from Israeli leaders urging a return of a small number of refugees. She said Canada might host some Palestinian refugees as part of an agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, but the Canadian people would be given a chance to approve or disapprove of that, and that the number of refugees would not be large. She fielded various conspiracy theories dealing with refugees and then urged everyone to believe that "Canada has no hidden roles played under the table." She said Canada's concern with refugees was not new or sudden, with the thought that a deal on the refugees is at hand or now that Ehud Barak is the prime minister of Israel. "The concern began about five years ago," she said. Some believe that the plans to improve living conditions of refugees are an attempt to keep them in the camps forever. The ambassador said: "It's not fair to leave these people live like that more than this… Form a human point of view, we should find solutions to make their lives more logical."
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