Refugees in Beirut Eat Cats, Rats, Doctor Says

Starving Palestinians trapped in a besieged refugee camp in Beirut have been forced to eat cats, dogs and even rats to survive, a British surgeon said Tuesday.

“I have eaten dogs myself . . . and I have seen many, many others eat cats and dogs,” said Dr. Pauline Cutting, 35, one of small number of foreign medical workers at the Haifa hospital in the Borj el Brajne refugee camp.

“A Dutch nurse has seen five children cooking a rat and eating it hungrily,” she told reporters by radio.

Fighters of the Shia Muslim militia Amal who are ringing the camp and Palestinian guerrillas loyal to Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat have been locked in a four-month-old war that has left more than 700 killed and 2,000 wounded.

Supplies Blocked by Amal

Amal fighters determined to prevent Arafat from re-establishing himself in Lebanon have been blocking food and medical supplies from entering Borj el Brajne and the nearby Chatilla camp.

Borj el Brajne, a tightly-packed maze of ramshackle dwellings, houses 30,000 refugees. About 3,000 live in Chatilla, which has also been battered by shellfire.

“Every day, dozens of children and elderly people come to the hospital begging for food. The other day I cried when they came, but they comforted me, saying this was their life and they were used to it,” Cutting said.

“Things have become very difficult for the past 15 weeks with no food allowed in at all. For more than two weeks people have been eating what little they can find,” Cutting said.

Diseases From Hunger

The Briton, who is assisted by a Scottish surgeon and a Dutch nurse, said they are seeing diseases resulting from hunger.

“Many are undernourished. . . . Two babies died yesterday (Monday) because they were born prematurely to undernourished mothers,” she said, adding, “One woman was shot while trying to pick some grass to feed her seven children.”

In West Beirut’s small Mar Elias camp, which is not under siege, a Palestinian boy evacuated from Borj el Brajne recalled the deprivation he had escaped.

“We were eating cats and mules. We would boil and eat them,” said 9-year-old Mohammed Kassab.

Appeals for Supplies

The head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) appealed Tuesday for militia leaders to let his agency and other relief groups re-supply the camps.

Giogio Ciacomelli, the commissioner general of the agency, “expressed concern for the health and safety of thousands of women and children and noncombatants suffering acute hardship in the camps,” a statement issued in Vienna said.

Cutting said the malnutrition has aggravated the plight of Palestinians under constant bombardment by Amal. “Many suffer from vomiting, diarrhea, skin diseases, infections and other complications from eating bad food.”

Medicine Running Low

Medical supplies, including penicillin, antibiotics, anesthetics and children’s medicines are running very low.

“We have run out of standard painkillers, and fuel for the generator used for the operating theater will only last two or three more days,” she said.

“With no food and little heating in the cold weather, people have very little resistance to illnesses. . . . One of my fellow doctors recently fainted in the operating room because he had gone without food for quite some time,” Cutting said.

Borj el Brajne residents even asked Muslim religious leaders last week for a ruling on whether they could eat human flesh to survive.

“People have not resorted to that yet but are becoming very desperate,” Cutting said.