Gazans fleeing Rafah say they now live ‘in misery’ next to garbage dump in Khan Younis
In Khan Younis, where Gaza’s Al-Aqsa University once stood, thousands of families say they’re being forced to live next to what has become a putrid temporary garbage dump.
Stretching 250 metres, the pile of garbage is longer than Seattle’s Space Needle is high. Flies, cockroaches and other bugs are inescapable, as is the unbearable foul smell.
“The situation is indescribable,” said Abdullah Tayseer, 48, who moved to Khan Younis with his wife and three children after fighting forced them from their temporary refuge in Rafah.
“All day long we live in misery.”
UNRWA, the main United Nations agency in Gaza, estimated that as of Monday, more than 800,000 people had left Rafah since Israel began targeting the city in early May.
Israel said earlier this week it intended to broaden its operations in Rafah despite U.S. warnings about the risk of mass casualties. Many Gazans fled the southern city and made their way back to Khan Younis, about nine kilometres to the north, hoping to set up shelter at the Al-Aqsa University campus — only to find that it had been turned into one of the city’s main garbage dumps.
Abdullah Tayseer and Muhammad Abu Aser were both displaced from Rafah to Khan Younis amid a looming Israeli military incursion. Tayseer says he was forced to live near garbage.
Desperate, tired and faced with limited options, thousands set up camp near the dump, where garbage trucks coming from other camps within city boundaries regularly unload their contents.
The landfill used to be in Sofa, a town east of Khan Younis, but the city — which is responsible for waste collection — said it had to be moved to a more central area that would be easier to access as the war dragged on.
They chose the vacant university campus, where most of the buildings have been destroyed during the conflict.
‘The centre of the displaced’
Mohamed Al-Farra, an environmental engineer with the city, said the university was chosen because it was the largest space available at the time and “the furthest place from people.”
However, as people flooded back into Khan Younis, Al-Farra told CBC News that the dump “is now the centre of the displaced.”
He said the trash greatly affects the spread of disease and vermin.
“The displaced tell us that they’ve seen roaches that they’ve never seen in their lives.”
Muhammad Abu Aser, 44, said he pitched his tent near the dump after he and his family were forced to leave Rafah because they couldn’t find anywhere else to go.
“We are forced to stay near garbage,” he told a freelance videographer working with CBC News in Gaza. “We’re just trying our best to live.”
Health consequences
People can face a number of health problems if they live in areas without proper garbage disposal because trash can contaminate air, soil and water, according to the World Health Organization. Vulnerable groups like children are at increased risk of adverse health outcomes.
A 2021 study found health consequences for people living near landfills, incinerators or dumping sites in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America included infectious diseases, respiratory conditions, cancer, birth defects and gastrointestinal illness.
Abu Aser and Tayseer both believe their proximity to the landfill is affecting their children’s health.
“The kids are all sick … their stomachs hurt,” said Tayseer, who is originally from the north part of the Gaza Strip.
Israel attacked Gaza following a Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on southern Israeli communities that killed 1,200 people and saw more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Gaza health authorities say Israel’s responding assault has killed more than 35,000 people, with thousands more feared buried under the rubble.
Aid groups say health conditions in the Gaza Strip are already dire as hundreds of thousands of people pack into the crowded, unsanitary camps, noting that women and children have particularly struggled with poor living conditions.
Al-Farra says the city will only be able to move the dump back to its original location if the war ends and access to the old site is restored.
Back at his tent, Abu Aser says he and his family have nowhere else to go until the war is over.
“We can’t handle a war,” he said. “We can’t handle anything anymore.”
Published at Tue, 21 May 2024 08:01:50 +0000
Spinal surgeries needed for 22 on board turbulent Singapore Airlines flight, hospital says
Several of the more seriously injured people who were on the Singapore Airlines flight that hit severe turbulence earlier this week will need spinal surgery, a Bangkok hospital said Thursday.
Twenty people remained in intensive care and a 73-year-old British man died after the Boeing 777, which was flying from London’s Heathrow airport to Singapore on Tuesday, ran into bad turbulence over the Andaman Sea, hurling items, passengers and crew members around the cabin.
A public relations officer for Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital, where most of the 104 people hurt in the incident were treated, told The Associated Press that other local hospitals have been asked to lend their best specialists to assist in the treatments. He spoke on condition of anonymity under hospital policy.
Hospital director Adinun Kittiratanapaibool said at a news conference Thursday that none of the 20 patients in ICU were in life-threatening condition. They include six Britons, six Malaysians, three Australians, two Singaporeans and one person each from Hong Kong, New Zealand and the Philippines.
‘Sheer terror’
Passengers have described the “sheer terror” of the aircraft shuddering, loose items flying and injured people lying paralyzed on the floor of the plane.
It remains unclear what exactly caused the turbulence that sent the plane, which was carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members, on an approximately 1,800-metre descent in about three minutes, after which the flight was diverted to Thailand.
In one of the latest accounts of the chaos on board, 43-year-old Malaysian Amelia Lim described finding herself face down on the floor.
“I was so afraid…. I could see so many individuals on the floor, they were all bleeding. There was blood on the floor as well as on the people,” she told the online Malay Mail newspaper.
Passengers who were aboard the London-to-Singapore flight that experienced severe turbulence describe what they saw on the flight, including staff working to help people even after being injured themselves.
The woman who had been seated next to her was “motionless in the aisle and unable to move, likely suffering from a hip or spinal injury,” she said.
Thai authorities said the British man who died possibly had a heart attack. Passengers have described how the flight crew tried to revive him by performing CPR for about 20 minutes.
22 people left with spinal injuries, hospital says
Among some 41 people who had remained at Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital on Thursday morning, 22 had spinal or spinal cord damage, six had skull or brain injuries and 13 had damage to bones or internal organs, said hospital director Kittiratanapaibool. The 19 men and 22 women ranged in age from 2 years to 83 years.
Seventeen surgeries have already been performed — nine spinal surgeries and eight for other injuries, he said. Thirteen others injured in the incident remain at two other branches of the hospital.
Asked about the prognosis for the most serious cases, he said it was too early to tell if any could suffer permanent paralysis, and doctors would have to observe whether muscle function recovered after surgery.
On Wednesday morning, a special Singapore Airlines flight took 143 uninjured or lightly hurt people onward to Singapore.
Most people associate turbulence with heavy storms, but the most dangerous type is so-called clear air turbulence. Wind shear can occur in wispy cirrus clouds or even in clear air near thunderstorms, as differences in temperature and pressure create powerful currents of fast-moving air.
According to a 2021 report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, turbulence accounted for 37.6 per cent of all accidents on larger commercial airlines between 2009 and 2018. The Federal Aviation Administration, another U.S. government agency, has said there were 146 serious injuries from turbulence from 2009 to 2021.
Tourism and aviation expert Anita Mendiratta, who is based in London, said severe turbulence is “extremely unusual.”
She said passengers should listen to instructions to keep their seatbelts on, ensure that hand baggage is put away safely when not in use, and reduce items stowed in the overhead compartments.
“When there is turbulence, those doors can open, and all of the items up top — whether it’s our hand baggage, our jackets, our duty-free items — they become movable and they become a risk to us all,” she told the AP.
Published at Thu, 23 May 2024 23:41:42 +0000