NCRI – The President of European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq has condemned the ‘appalling’ mortar and missile attack on Camp Liberty on Saturday which left at least six people dead and 100 injured.
The statement by the President of the Delegation said he was ‘shocked’ by the violence and called on US Secretary of State John Kerry to take urgent action to relocate the camp’s 3100 residents to safety, the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq said.
Residents and their legal representatives had warned repeatedly about the extreme vulnerability of Liberty – where they are crammed into squalid prison conditions – but each time their fears were discounted by the UN, it added.
LATEST UPDATE ON CAMP LIBERTY ATTACK
The delegation’s president Struan Stevenson MEP said: “Camp Liberty’s atrocious prison-like conditions, its inadequate protection and lack of progress in relocating these innocent refugees and asylum seekers to third countries, further necessitates the return of these residents to Camp Ashraf until they can be taken out of Iraq to countries of safety.
“The US Government and the UN are directly responsible for the security and protection of these refugees and they have failed them miserably.
“I hold them fully accountable for this latest atrocity. The 3100 residents crammed into Camp Liberty are sitting ducks who can be murdered at will by Iraqis and their Iranian sponsors. We warned that this would happen and absolutely no notice was taken.
“I call on the newly appointed US Secretary of State John Kerry to take immediate action to get these people relocated to places of safety.”
Stevenson also called on the UNHCR to declare the refugee status of the residents of Camp Liberty immediately in order to protect their lives.
And he urged UN High Commissioner Antonio Guterres to force the Iraqi government to relocate the residents of Liberty back to Ashraf without delay.
He said: “This is a humanitarian necessity, a legal necessity, and an ethical necessity that the European Union, the U.S. government, and the United Nations must try immediately to make happen.”
