Shias Fire on Camp Protest; 5 Deaths Reported

Shia Muslim forces surrounding a Palestinian refugee camp fired on demonstrators demanding an end to the five-month-old siege, killing five women, Palestinian representatives said Sunday.

However, leaders of the Shia Amal militia, which surrounds the Chatilla camp in Beirut’s southern outskirts, denied attacking innocent demonstrators.

In a statement, they said Amal fighters opened fire on Palestinian guerrillas trying to mix with the protesters and cross Amal lines. They gave no casuality figures.

A Palestinian spokesman said the Shia forces killed five women and wounded two by firing on about 40 Palestinian women trying to march out of the camp.

“The demonstrating women attempted to cross the front line and reach newsmen outside the camp to express their urgent . . . need for food” for their children, said the spokesman for the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist group supported by Moscow and leftist Arab regimes.

Journalists trying to reach the camp to investigate the report were stopped by an army officer of Lebanon’s 6th Brigade, who said: “It’s a calm day. No demonstration happened on the other side today.”

However, a brief police statement confirmed “machine-gun fire in the vicinity of the Chatilla camp.”

Shortly after the incident, dozens of Palestinian women who live outside the camp marched to Syrian troop headquarters, calling for an immediate end to the siege.

Commanders of more than 7,000 Syrian troops, who entered West Beirut last month at the request of Muslim leaders to end militia rule, have hinted that they might deploy troops around Chatilla and the nearby Borj el Brajne refugee camp to end the fighting.