A Poem for Yarmouk

Yesterday the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees released photographs of what it called "apocalyptic scenes " of Palestinians queing for food parcels in Syria's refugee camp.
A day earlier, UNRWA chief Flippo Grandi spoke of the shocking conditions he had seen inside the camp, which has been under seige and bombardment for months.
"It's like the appearance of ghosts" he said of the sight of thousands of Palestinians flooding toward an aid distibution point at the camp, when he was in the Syrian capital on Monday.

Poem for Yarmouk

Scenes of unimaginable desolation,
the sounds of devastated cries,
as Palestinians in Syria,
get caught up in a man made catastrophe.
The images that we see, only a hint,
of the suffering, deprivation and loss,
experienced daily by the inhabitants of Yarmouk ,
humanitarian aid blocked, people marooned,
shivering under a helpless sky,
forgetting to tell joy from bitterness,
in darkness, tears fall all around,
as walls of suffering hold there gaze,
while humanity fails to answer the need,
of a people driven to exile to a hostile land,
the smell of jasmine, far from there breath.

What can we do? How to explain?
How many questions can  there be?
as they shout in misery and desperation,
a mother tries to protect her newborn child,
to allow it to be safe from harm,
left out, and allowed to drift,
in this prison camp of stinging shadows,
going nowhere fast, with nowhere to run,
cornered in a hell that they did not choose,
another dark page in the passage of history,
a savage reminder of the sacrements of man.

ACT NOW THIS SIEGE MUST END
Various petitions online.
Here's one:-
http://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/uk_Government_United_Nations_Break_the_siege_of_Yarmouk_Damascus_and_Homs/pv=8