|
|
 |
| |
Dr Shove, second from right, with fellow protesters outside the Egyptian embassy |
Gaza protester backs hunger strike by barred medics team
Retired consultant accuses embassy of failing to put pressure on Cairo
A RETIRED consultant from Angel has voiced support for colleagues who have gone on hunger strike after being refused permission to enter war-devastated Gaza.
Dr David Shove accused Britain’s Foreign Office and the British Embassy in Cairo of failing to put sufficient pressure on the Egyptian authorities to allow a medical aid team access to an area which suffered Israeli bombing early this year.
In protest, three British medics went on hunger strike on the Egyptian border this week.
A Solidarity Tent has been set up outside the Egyptian Embassy in the West End in support of Omar Mangoush, a cardiac surgeon at Hammersmith Hospital, sister Kirsty Wong, a theatre sister in the cardiac surgical unit at Hammersmith, and Dr Chris Burns-Cox, a retired consultant physician from Bristol.
Dr Shove, from Gibson Square, travelled with the team but returned to London after being refused access to Gaza. He said that Irish and American relief organisations had got through, thanks, he believes, to a more vigorous approach by their embassies.
Dr Shove’s mission, with Islington-based Palestine International Medical Aid, was to deliver supplies to medical students at Rafah European Hospital in southern Gaza.
He said: “It was also my hope to visit Yibna Refugee Camp, which is supported by Islington Friends of Yibna, of which I am a member.”
From the beginning of May the group travelled every day from Al Arish, where they were staying, to the Rafah border on the Egyptian side. Dr Shove said: “We were in daily contact with the British Embassy in Cairo and were assured it had passed on our names to the appropriate Egyptian authorities. Egyptian security at the border, however, claimed not to have received the faxes from the embassy and each day we were denied entry to Gaza.”
After a week, Dr Shove returned to London, but with the assurance that the border would be open by May 17. But once again the group were denied entry.
He said: “The group believes this decision was in the hands of the Egyptian authorities, but they also have no doubt the British Embassy in Cairo did not help them. This is in contrast to the Irish and US groups, who put huge pressure on their embassies, and who were allowed to enter Gaza.”
Dr Shove will speak at an Islington Friends of Yibna meeting at 7pm on Wednesday, June 3, at Islington Town Hall. |
 |
|
|
|
|
Your comments:
The British Embassy should put pressure immediately.
P. Siromoni
The 'deaf' ears, of the British Embassy, in Cairo, is a another example of the power of the zionist lobby, upon the British government. shameful.
R. Krueger
|
| |
|
|
|
