Borini to UNRWA: Answer staff demands to avoid worsening refugee conditions

[ 25/10/2010 - 07:44 PM ]

NABLUS, (PIC)-- Palestinian MP Hosni Al Borini (Nablus) called on the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) administration to take immediate and just action to end a strike by its staff to avoid worsening health and service conditions in Palestine’s refugee camps.

Borini said in a press statement Monday that he rejects the idea that the interests of Palestinian refugees are subjected to disagreements between UNRWA and its employees, at the same time asking UNRWA to treat its staff fairly and carefully consider the complaints which triggered them to go on strike. He noted that the strike’s primary victims are Palestinians in refugee camps.

Noting the tragic conditions in the camps resulting from the strike, he said streets are filled with garbage, health clinics have been shut in the faces of patients, and around 60,000 students have been denied education for days.

Borini said camp residents express a state of severe distress as tensions rise by the day with the ongoing strike, which has paralyzed basic life services in the camps.

He believed that UNRWA’s excuse of a budget deficit is a flimsy pretext that puts UNRWA under suspicion and shows the agency’s harmony with the political extortion of the Palestinian people and their cause.

Borini concluded by saying that positive and constructive dialogue is the only solution to this problem, stressing that turning its back on its staff and their demands will only lead UNRWA to more complications in the way of a solution.

UNRWA staff went on strike Oct. 12, 2010 based on a decision by an Arab laborers union in the Palestinian territories in wake of failed talks between the union and UNRWA administration over payment of workers salaries for the days they went on strike in last June.

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