Shias Ignore Pleas, Bar Food Convoy at Camp

Shia Muslim militiamen, ignoring worldwide appeals, today turned back a relief convoy headed for a besieged Palestinian refugee camp where residents have been forced to eat dogs, cats and rats to survive.

Two trucks loaded with rice, flour and potatoes were stopped by members of the powerful Amal militia before they could enter the sprawling Borj el Brajne refugee camp in southern Beirut. The camp is home for about 11,000 Palestinians.

The Amal militia said it blocked the delivery of relief supplies because Palestinian fighters had not honored an agreement to withdraw from the strategic hilltop village of Maghdousheh, 24 miles south of Beirut.

The guerrillas captured Maghdousheh, within rifle range of Amal’s main coastal supply route to the south, during house-to-house fighting in November.

The militia accused supporters of Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, of blocking a Syrian-Libyan mediated agreement reached Tuesday in Damascus.

Under the pact, both sides agreed that a cease-fire today in and around the Borj el Brajne and Chatilla camps in Beirut, and a Palestinian pullout from Maghdousheh, should precede the delivery of food supplies to the camps.

Amal said it would not lift its siege around the two camps and the Rashidiyeh camp in southern Lebanon unless it recovered positions it lost to the guerrillas in the fighting.

But a Palestinian spokesman who refused to be named said, “We refuse to hand over our positions in Maghdousheh to Amal. Only a force that will protect our people will be allowed to take over.”