UNHCR Syrian Refugees Programme

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship for the first time.

My parents were refugees. They came to this country from Polish ghettos to escape religious and political persecution. Subsequently, most of their families were murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust, which has been commemorated this week, but despite the trauma they were able to build new lives here. In the summer of 1939, my parents took into their home a young girl who was one of the last to escape on the Kindertransport. She, too, was able to build a life in this country, and my most recent information is that she has a grand-daughter at Manchester university. Helping refugees has lifelong benefits.

The current situation is being watched with anxiety and distress by the Syrian community in Manchester, with which I recently attended a meeting held at the British Muslim heritage centre in my constituency in memory of Dr Abbas Khan, whose murder caused such distress. If my postbag is any guide, that anxiety is shared by those of all ethnicities in my constituency and more widely. There is special concern for Palestinian refugees, who are refugees twice over—from their own country and now from a war for which they have no responsibility, with which they have no connection and in which they have not taken a side. They are enduring death and deprivation in Syria.

The al-Yarmouk camp, just outside Damascus, has been under siege for six months. It was inhabited by more than 155,000 Palestinian refugees, but of those fewer than 20,000 now remain. A list has been published, which is in my possession, of the names of those who have died in the camp and the causes of death. Again and again, that cause is listed as starvation. Refugees in this camp are surviving on grass, animal feed and spices dissolved in water. Extreme human suffering in primitive conditions is the norm. Only 200 food parcels have been delivered to the remaining 20,000 people marooned in the camp.

Some 560,000 Palestinian refugees are living in Syria, and more than half of them have been displaced. Their restrictive travel documents mean that the majority would be unable to leave the country and seek safety abroad even if there were an opportunity for them to do so. Neighbouring countries—I pay tribute to them for the help that they have provided—are overwhelmed by Syrian refugees who have managed to get into their territory.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Let me compliment my right hon. Friend on his speech, and on the work that he has done on behalf of Palestinian refugees. Is it not also the case that tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees have recently arrived in Syria, mainly from Iraq but also from other countries, and that they are in a very dangerous and very vulnerable situation? Some have not even received permanent settlement in Syria, and are therefore particularly vulnerable both to the civil war and to any refugee programme that may ignore them in the future.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. No one—apart from the Syrian Government and another authority to which I shall refer in a moment—can be faulted for the efforts that are being made, but the situation on the ground is exceptionally difficult.

Although, as the Home Secretary has pointed out, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq have done their best to help, one neighbouring country that has not made the tiniest effort to do so is Israel. A large number of Israel’s population are refugees and descendants of refugees, and one would have thought that it would have some kind of conscience about the plight of refugees who are, in some instances, within yards of its borders, but the callous Government display no concern. The plight of the Palestinian refugees is their direct responsibility.

No one pretends that this situation can be dealt with easily. I join others in paying tribute to the Department for International Development for providing such huge amounts of money: that is the kind of thing that needs to be done, both because of its direct impact and because it demonstrates the determination of all the people of this country, and all the parties in the House, to do something about this ghastly situation. It is essential that we do not look back on it with the gnawing misgiving that we could have done more.