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Abbas Urges UN to Help Palestinian Refugees in Syria

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a meeting of the Palestinian leadership at his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, November 16, 2012.

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VOA News

December 19, 2012

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants Palestinian refugees living in Syria and affected by the fighting there to be able to enter the West Bank or Gaza Strip.

The official WAFA news agency said Abbas on Wednesday urged United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to help the refugees get to Palestinian territories.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency says more than 486,000 Palestinian refugees were living in nine official and three unofficial camps in Syria.

The Yarmouk camp in the Syrian capital, Damascus, has been the site of heavy fighting this week, including a deadly airstrike by a Syrian warplane.

The camp was established in 1957 and is home to the largest Palestinian refugee community in Syria.

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Boston Bomber Spent 6 Months in Russia’s Most Violent Republic

The news of the Boston Marathon bombings circled the globe, and resonated here in Dagestan, a majority Muslim republic in Russia, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Last year, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of two brothers suspected of the bombings and a long-time Boston resident, returned to Dagestan, where he had lived for a year during his youth. Dagestan was the land of his maternal ancestors. But in the last two years, this republic of 3 million people has gained notoriety as the region with the highest level of political and religious violence in all of Russia. VOA's James Brooke reports from Makhachkala, Russia.