The elderly man Abd al-Rahman Abu Jaber 60 found it difficult to reach his house in Al-Jammasin neighborhood in Balata refugee camp east of Nablus due to the flow of rainwater in the alley adjacent to his house with water levels reaching 30 cm.
The story of Abu Jaber is not the only one in the camp which has a population of more than 27000. It is one of the most overcrowded camps in the West Bank and the streets of the camp are flooded with rain every winter. Without UNRWA adopting reforms through the Popular Service Committees and with UNRWA recently adopting a process of cutting off its services things got worse.
The head of the Popular Services Committee in Balata refugee camp Emad Zaki said that the committee started in the last few weeks inspecting houses that were exposed to the rain and maintained them including distributing blankets and mattresses to a number of families.
UNRWA officials have also been urged to return the programs that have been suspended and cut according to the budget of 2018 which will be in the refugees’ public interest according to Zaki.
The situation is the same at Al-Ain camp at the western entrance of Nablus in the West Bank where Mahmoud al-Masri who is a member of the social committee is active in monitoring the cases of houses affected by the rain and the leakage of water into the houses especially under the main street adjacent to the camp.
Al-Masri acknowledges that several houses were exposed to rainfall during the recent rain waves due to the closure of several fountains for rainwater drainage and the lack of maintenance work for many old houses due to the suspension of UNRWA programs.
Youth activist Anwar Khaled complains about the poor condition of dozens of families in Nablus refugee camps which was revealed by the recent weather conditions. Some people could not provide the necessary heating devices or pay due electricity bills and gasolines for heating due to the difficult economic conditions.
In the old Askar refugee camp the Lod neighborhood is crowded with houses that have been flooded several times this month some of which have resulted in the leakage of water from the roofs damaging their possessions clothes blankets and food items.
Fatima al-Hafi said that the plain between Askar’s old and new camps turned into a lake of water. Last Thursday it was difficult for some people to move between their homes and neighboring areas because of the high water-level warning that children had difficulty reaching their schools because of the flooding water.
Jamila Ayyash a resident of the refugee camp mentions the annoying noise resulting from the neighbors’ leaking water line that hits the tin surface of her roof and sounds like a noisy music and which sometimes damages her own room when leaked into it.
Ayyash recalls the 1970s and 1980s when the houses in the camp had firewood for heating but it disappeared with the construction of modern houses and people had to search for expensive alternative heating.
