A woman out of 193 Iranian Kurdish refugees fleeing the war-torn Iraq, who have been stranded at the border with Jordan for the past two-and-a-half years, has died of a disease complication, becoming the first fatality there, the Jordan Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Sharkat Palani, 46, suffered from diabetes and a psychiatric illness, and left behind her husband and 11 children ranging in age from nine to 23, who all live in the same refugee camp dubbed as "no man's-land," Jordanian doctors were quoted as saying.
Khabat Mohammadi, acting spokesman for the Iranian Kurdish refugees complained that "we asked the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) to help bring her back to the Jordanian Red Crescent (JRC) hospital in Amman where she was treated a month ago, but we were told they could not do it without medical advice from a Jordanian doctor."
On Aug. 26, ICRC Jordan succeeded in having Palani transferred to a JRC hospital in Amman for medical care.
She was discharged on Sept. 18 on the basis that doctors there could not do anything more at that stage of her illnesses. But they provided her with medication to take once she was back at the camp.
"We did all we could and provided the patient with the necessary medicines for a follow-up back in the camp," said Dr. Atef Awadalah from the JRC hospital.
Her condition, however, despite the medication, started to deteriorate after returning to the camp, according to Mohammadi.
The 193 Iranian Kurdish refugees, the bulk under the age of 18, arrived at the Iraq-Jordan border after fleeing Al Tash refugee camp in western Iraq's An bar province, following clashes there in January 2005.
After being denied entry into Jordan, they remained on the Iraqi side of the border in an area that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it is difficult to access due to the lack of security.
Source: Xinhua
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