[Photograph of] Queue for food in Syria's Yarmouk camp shows desperation of refugees

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian




It is a vision of unimaginable desolation: a crowd of men, women and children stretching as far as the eye can see into the war-devastated landscape of Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.

A photograph released on Wednesday by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, shows the scene when thousands of desperate Palestinians trapped inside the camp on the edge of the Syrian capital emerged to besiege aid workers attempting to distribute food parcels.

More than 18,000 people are existing under blockade inside Yarmouk, enduring acute shortages of food, medicines and other essentials. Much of the camp has been destroyed by shelling, and attempts to deliver aid to those inside have been hampered by continued fighting in Syria's three-year-old civil war.

=snip=

Yarmouk has been cut off since last July. Many residents are now weak and severely malnourished, as well as being exposed to the risk of disease, or death and injury from fighting. Filippo Grandi, the head of UNRWA, described the camp as a ghost town after visiting this week. "The devastation is unbelievable. There is not one single building that I have seen that is not an empty shell by now. They're all blackened by smoke," he told reporters.



Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/26/queue-food-syria-yarmouk-camp-desperation-refugees

[EileenFB]

1. There are no words!

this is just horrible.

[freshwest]

2. Looks like WW2 with nowhere to go and unsafe buildings all around them... n/t

[Archae]

3. What bugs me the most about this picture...

Where is other Arab countries?

Like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait?

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. The Saudis are busy helping to fuel the civil war...

...as a proxy war in their fight with Iran. Saudi money pays for a lot of this revolution. I don't know how much the Saudis raise for the war's victims.

[Turborama]

5. The answers are in the article n/t

[JI7]

6. looks like Syria may go the way of Somalia

unless something changes.

[El_Johns]

7. The photo looks fake to me.

Here's a bigger version. Click on the first photo. Look in the center of the photo, at the guy with the backwards white baseball cap and blue jacket with lettering on it. Then look to his lower right. You will see a very very tiny woman who is apparently in front of him.

http://www.unrwa.org/galleries/photos/morning-yarmouk

I think they pasted some people in there. There are other pictures from the same set that don't look fake; they show crowded streets & food distribution, but not *that* crowded.




Jonathan M. Katz ?@KatzOnEarth · 14h
@HughSykes @JessicaMontell @UNRWA @AP Is the photo confirmed real? @storyfulpro


Sanctimonious Merkan ?@shekissesfrogs · 11h
@j0hnbrady @HughSykes because it's not, it's a composite, open in a new tab and look closely.Not a good way to advocate for starving people.


Sanctimonious Merkan ?@shekissesfrogs · 11h
@HughSykes @JessicaMontell @UNRWA @AP this is a composite, and will do harm. look closer.


John Brady ?@j0hnbrady · 10h
@shekissesfrogs Interesting. Not totally surprised. How can you tell though?

Sanctimonious Merkan ?@shekissesfrogs · 10h
@j0hnbrady used to mess with photoshop & I've seen them before. see woman in black, vertically near center,horizontal 1/3 from the right


Sanctimonious Merkan ?@shekissesfrogs · 10h
@j0hnbrady the left side of her robe (her right) is straight cut. also groupings of people have different color saturations.

John Brady ?@j0hnbrady · 9h
@shekissesfrogs I see. The image has made front page of @guardian tomorrow. See their tweet from a few minutes ago.

https://twitter.com/HughSykes/status/438662987054714880

[Turborama]

8. It doesn't to the editor of The Guardian, as it's on the cover of today's issue

Maybe you should let him know your concerns?

http://www.theguardian.com/info/2013/oct/28/observer-readers-editor

[El_Johns]

9. Time will tell. it wouldn't be the first time a major media source published a fake photo.

Your print is too small to see the very very tiny woman. You can see her a little better in this one.

Once you see her, it's pretty obvious it's fake.

[Turborama]

10. The one in the OP is not my print, it's the largest copy from the Guardian

From here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/picture/2014/feb/26/yarmouk-refugee-camp-damascus-syria

Sorry, I gave you the wrong link earlier, it was to The Observer's ombudsman. Here's The Guardian's: http://www.theguardian.com/info/2013/sep/23/guardian-readers-editor

[El_Johns]

12. yes. see the very very tiny woman.

[Turborama]

11. Where is this very very tiny woman you speak of?

Can you put an arrow on the photo?

[El_Johns]

13. I don't know how to put arrows on photos. But if you look at the center of the picture, there's

a guy with a navy blue jacket with some lettering on it and a backwards white baseball cap.

At his lower right (our right, his left) is a very very tiny woman.




You can zoom in a little more on this one and see better.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/picture/2014/feb/26/yarmouk-refugee-camp-damascus-syria#zoomed-picture

[Turborama]

14. OK, I have found a huge version of this photo and cropped out the area you're talking about...

Is she somewhere in this?



Here's the huge version I found, just copy and paste it into your browser and close the spaces:

http:// beta.pri.org/sites/default/ files/story/images/RTR3FQJZ. jpg

[El_Johns]

16. Yes. Your link brings me "this page cannot be displayed".

[Turborama]

17. You have to close all the gaps, I'll write gap where they are so they are more obvious.

http:// gap beta.pri.org/sites/default/ gap files/story/images/RTR3FQJZ. gap jpg


I can't see a tiny tiny woman in front of the guy with a baseball cap on, btw.

[El_Johns]

18. and now i get the "oops" page on pri; when i search "yarmouk," i get:

http://beta.pri.org/stories/2014-02-26/yarmouk-man-made-disaster-zone-right-inside-syrian-capital-damascus


Block out the background women & you'll see the tiny woman.

[Turborama]

19. OK, go to the top left photo in Google images.

Here: https://www.google.com/search?num=100&newwindow=1&safe=off&tbm=isch&tbs=simg:CAQSUxpRCxCo1NgEGgIIAwwLELCMpwgaKgooCAESAlNUGiDH8nnlKkqVNaRNgfWGo-s2b6n4RqYydaLU6791u5b9bQwLEI6u_1ggaCgoICAESBIrsS6IM&sa=X&ei=BBgPU-vYAcWPrgferYDwCg&ved=0CCQQ2A4oAQ&biw=1536&bih=730&dpr=1.25

And if we block out all the women in the background we are left with these 2...




...who in the context of the big picture do not look tiny tiny at all.



The guys next to them look like they're standing on something (the area is a war zone covered in rubble, remember) and the two small women talking to the younger women look elderly and they may have shortened with age, which does happen.

[Quantess]

15. My first thought was that it looks photoshopped, but I am keeping an open mind about it.

It looks fake to me also, but it could be real. I will be holding out for confirmation.

[FSogol]

20. Same here. Looks like a composite. n/t