Palestinians Say 9 Died of Hunger, Lack of Medicine

A Palestinian alliance said that nine refugees--four of them children--died Wednesday of hunger or the results of lack of medicine in Beirut’s besieged Chatilla camp.

The Palestine National Salvation Front, an alliance of six Damascus-based guerrilla groups, said that “four children died of hunger today, and five wounded Palestinians died due to the lack of medicine.”

Also, one Palestinian woman was killed and three others were wounded when snipers fired on them as they tried to leave southern Beirut’s Borj el Brajne refugee camp to get food, the Moscow-oriented Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine said.

Since reporters have not been permitted to enter the camp, independent confirmation of the Palestinian claims was not possible.

Three Bombs Detonated

Meanwhile, three bombs went off early in the evening in West Beirut’s residential district of Verdun within a 15-minute period, police said.

The first one exploded near the residence of Interior Minister Abdullah Rassi, wounding two pedestrians and shattering windows, police said. The other two went off in a garbage dump and near a supermarket, damaging two cars.

The explosions brought to 29 the numbers of bombings in West Beirut since Syria moved troops into the city Feb. 22. The only fatal bombing, on Saturday, killed seven people.

No one has claimed responsibility, but police officials have said the bombings appear to be be aimed at undermining Syria’s peacekeeping efforts.

Appeal ‘to All the World’

The Palestinian alliance statement said that Chatilla’s 5,000 refugees appealed to “all the world and to international humanitarian organizations to support our people in demanding an end to the siege of refugee camps.”

Militiamen of Justice Minister Nabih Berri’s mainstream Shia Muslim Amal movement have been blockading refugee camps in Beirut and southern Lebanon for more than four months. The intent is to keep the Palestinians from rebuilding forces driven out by Israel in its 1982 invasion.

In Baghdad, Iraq, Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat said he is appealing to world opinion to pressure Amal into ending the siege.

The state-run Iraqi News Agency, monitored in Nicosia, Cyprus, reported Arafat’s remarks.

The alliance statement accused Amal and the Lebanese army’s predominantly Shia Muslim 6th Brigade with “destroying 95% of Chatilla’s shacks on the heads of their tenants.”

Amal partially eased its siege of Borj el Brajne last month, after the camp’s 20,000 refugees were reported to have been reduced to eating cats, dogs and rats. It allowed women and children to shop for food in adjacent Shia slums for three hours daily.

But Palestinian spokesmen say 26 women have been killed by Shia snipers during the excursions and say that food and medical supplies remain scarce.

Airports for All or None

In another development, Christian leaders again said that Beirut’s international airport should not reopen unless Christians are allowed to open an airport in their 1,000-square-mile enclave.

“Either airports for all the Lebanese or no airport for anyone,” said Samir Geagea, commander of the Lebanese Forces, the nation’s largest Christian militia.

The Christian demand has been sharply opposed by the Muslims, who claim it will lead to further partitioning of the country.

Beirut airport, the nation’s only civil aviation facility, has been closed since Feb. 1.

Premier Rashid Karami, a Sunni Muslim, declared Tuesday that Beirut’s airport would reopen by the weekend.

A few hours after Karami’s statement, a small bomb ripped through a West Beirut office of Middle East Airlines, the nation’s only air carrier, shattering windows, police said.