Five Palestinian families stuck on the Libyan-Tunisian borders urge PRCS to intervene to help them return home

( Libyan-Tunisian borders, 25-03-2011): Five Palestinian families comprising 42 members living in the Ras Jadeer Refugee Camp on the Libyan-Tunisian borders have urged PRCS to intervene with the Palestinian National Authority in order to enable them to return home, or to any other country that would accept to host them.

These families had fled Libya following the events in that country and the ensuing harassments they have been subjected to. Three of these families carry Egyptian travel documents, while a fourth family carries Jordanian passports and the head of the fifth family (father) does not have a valid passport but carries a Palestinian ID card issued in the West Bank.

These families have been living in Libya for a period ranging from 8 months to 19 years. Speaking to the PRCS mission working in Libya alongside other national Red Cross/Crescent Societies, the families stated that their living conditions in the refugee camp are tragic and that their future is uncertain, despite the great humanitarian care they have received from the Tunisian Red Crescent and from other Arab Red Crescent Societies, mainly the Emirati Society.

The PRCS mission started working on the Libyan-Tunisian borders as soon as the unrest started at the beginning of March 2011. It operates alongside several Arab and foreign medical missions and has provided its services to a large number of displaced Arab populations.

It has also visited the majority of centers for the displaced where it provided humanitarian assistance. Moreover, PRCS had launched a relief campaign in support of those displaced populations, dispatching a relief convoy carrying food, covers and medicine, inter alia, as well as a medical team, in cooperation with the Egyptian Red Crescent Society, to the Libyan-Egyptian borders to help provide humanitarian services to the displaced.