The dangerous absurdity of Lebanon's refugee camp decision

[Originally posted at NOW]

See if you can follow the logic: the Lebanese government is now concerned that its 1.2m Syrian refugee population has become vulnerable to infiltration – or has indeed already been infiltrated – by extremist Islamist groups. At the back of its and everyone else’s mind is the battle last month between Islamic State (IS) jihadists and the Lebanese army in the border town of Arsal, where gunmen were reported to have emerged from the makeshift camps housing thousands of refugees in the adjacent and otherwise barren Wadi Hmayyed region, beyond the final Lebanese army checkpoint but before the first Syrian one.

To mitigate this worry, the government now plans to move refugees currently scattered across the developed areas of the country, where their activities are closely monitored by security and intelligence forces, to precisely the same jihadist safe haven from which IS launched its August attack.

Citing “social and security concerns,” Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas told Annahar today a decision has been made to “establish experimental camps on Lebanese state territories [in areas] between the [Lebanese-Syrian] border.” This is essentially the same proposal that’s already been mulled several times in the past, and has been thoroughly criticized by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). It’s worth revisiting what they had to say about it in May:

“In our experience camps that are built on border areas can be transformed into places where armed activities take place […] The border has witnessed a good number of security incidents over the past three years and the Lebanese government does not have a permanent presence [there] to oversee the security situation.”

In other words, moving the people you suspect of harboring jihadist sympathies to a lawless no-man’s-land crawling with jihadists might not be a surefire formula for stability. And who, incidentally, is to protect the refugees, 80% of whom are women and children, from the gunmen? For months, Lebanon was unable to provide security for thousands of its own citizens in the border town of Tfeil. How far will it be willing to go to protect Syrians, who it now regards as IS fifth columnists? Will it enlist the help of the Syrian army? Hezbollah? Anyone who has spent five minutes with a Syrian refugee knows how they’d react to that notion.

On a more pedestrian note, as UNHCR also pointed out, who will provide the infrastructure? Lebanese citizens themselves in the east Beqaa are lucky to get 3 hours a day of electricity. Water is a similar lottery. Derbas told Annahar the money would come from “Arab and international” sources. Now might be the time to mention that UNHCR, three years into the Syrian refugee crisis, has only managed to raise 36% of its pledged funding. And, again, we’re talking about a territory contiguous with the most violent war zone on earth today. What happens if the security situation doesn’t permit aid workers access?

That the Syrian refugee crisis, like the wider Syrian conflict itself, has had profound repercussions on Lebanon is beyond doubt. Sadly, this plan seems less an earnest effort to resolve them than an ill-conceived capitulation to the irrational, and increasingly xenophobic, passions of the street.

The Syrian Refugees Problem

[Originally posted at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Sada journal]

A combination of security, economic, and above all political considerations has the Lebanese government seeking for the first time to limit, and ultimately reduce, its Syrian and Syrian-Palestinian refugee population. Human rights groups have criticized these new restrictions on Syrian refugees, saying the denial of refuge to those in need violates fundamental principles of international law. But Lebanon’s political power brokers are fearful of more than just the economic and social burdens of Syrian refugees.

The exact details of the new stipulations, passed by cabinet in June, vary for Syrians and Syrian-Palestinians (that is, Palestinian refugees previously residing in Syria). Refuge will, from now on, only be granted to those “coming from regions where battles are raging near the Lebanese border,” in the words of Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas, with “humanitarian and necessary” exceptions. Additionally, all refugees traveling to Syria, for any reason or duration of stay, are stripped of refugee status upon their return. On top of these restrictions, Syrian-Palestinians also face further monetary charges and onerous administrative requirements that amount in practice to a near-total ban on coming to Lebanon.

Syrian and Syrian-Palestinian refugees number well over a million and are expected to comprise a third of Lebanon’s population by the end of the year. At present, refugees are scattered across the country, living wherever they can afford to, including in over 1,200 ad hoc, self-built camps. A proposal that has been contemplated since the start of the crisis would set up formal camps to house existing refugees along the Lebanese-Syrian border. While this is unlikely to move forward at present for a number of reasons, it could potentially be adopted in a partial or revised form in the future. A recent revival of the proposal divided Lebanese officials, with the health minister calling it the only solution, while the foreign minister vowed to “oppose [it] no matter the pressure.” The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) came out against it, arguing the state would be able to provide neither the infrastructure nor the security necessary for it to succeed.

Either way, there is clearly a new mood shared among Lebanon’s power brokers with regard to the refugees. Although the underlying factors fueling it have been accumulating since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the translation of this mood into executive action was largely triggered by a single event. On May 28, 2014, tens of thousands of Syrians waving Hezbollah flags and posters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad descended upon the Syrian embassy east of Beirut to vote in their country’s presidential elections, which were widely regarded as illegitimate. The unexpectedly vast turnout halted traffic across the capital for hours, and led to mild clashes with overwhelmed Lebanese soldiers guarding the embassy.

Within hours, Lebanon’s anti-Assad March 14 coalition, which holds over a third of cabinet seats, issued furious condemnations of the spectacle, calling it a “provocation” orchestrated by Syrian intelligence and Hezbollah, and demanding the deportation of all Syrian supporters of Assad. Less than a week later, on June 2, the cabinet decided on the new entry restrictions, and while the official explanation was “security concerns,” a Western diplomatic source cited the embassy controversy as a likely stimulus.1 Similarly, UNHCR said the government had acted in the hope of “ensuring that actions by refugees (including exercising their right to vote inside Syria) do not provoke adverse reactions inside Lebanon or stoke hostility between refugees and the communities in which they reside.”2

To be clear, it was not the relatively benign happenings at the embassy itself that mattered so much as what they represented. Until then, the refugee presence had arguably been politically useful for March 14. More than a million destitute men, women, and children were daily reminders of the tragedy of a brutal war they could blame on Assad and their key domestic rival, Hezbollah. However, seeing that the same refugees could also be mobilized—whether on their own or coerced by political groups—in their tens of thousands against them was an unwelcome surprise for March 14’s public as much as its politicians.

This shifted March 14’s outlook to something closer to that of its pro-Assad rivals, the March 8 coalition, who have never been comfortable with the Syrian refugee presence. Christian members of March 8 in particular, such as the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), have long been accused of stirring xenophobia and paranoia with their public allegations of “conspiracies” to settle the refugees permanently and thereby change Lebanon’s sectarian demography. In 2013, one FPM member, who has since become foreign minister, went as far as calling for deporting all refugees. While March 14’s large Sunni Muslim constituency has no such anxieties about the predominantly Sunni refugees, the embassy episode nevertheless resulted in a degree of convergence of political opinions and interests between the two blocs.

That convergence against the presence of Syrian refugees was also made possible by the shared burden of an economic collapse brought on by a more than 25 percent population increase in three years. Social Affairs Minister Derbas recently put the direct cost to Lebanon of the refugee crisis at $7.5 billion, or 17 percent of GDP. Unemployment in some regions has doubled as Lebanese manual labor is undercut by Syrian competition. Electricity and water resources, already insufficient to meet Lebanese demand alone, have had to be spread that much thinner. The overall impact of the Syrian war and its occasionally bloody “spillover” into Lebanon has been a decline in GDP growth from 7 percent in 2010 to 1 percent in 2014, according to latest IMF estimates. Tourism, which in better years would make up a quarter of national income, has particularly suffered. While none of this, of course, is the refugees’ fault, it has predictably bred resentment and revived xenophobic sentiments picked up during 29 years of Syrian occupation. In short, Lebanese of all political persuasions have become fed up.

For the refugees themselves, the government’s new policy adds yet another source of hardship to an already grueling existence. It is unclear how many Syrians have been turned away since the June 2 decision, but a new Amnesty International report documents a number of what it calls “shocking” cases among Syrian-Palestinians, including pregnant women fleeing the besieged Yarmouk camp in Damascus being denied refuge at the border, and children in Lebanon being separated from parents who entered Syria briefly to renew identity documents. Syrian-Palestinians make up less than 5 percent of all refugees from Syria. As the restrictions spread to the broader Syrian refugee population, the new policy will likely have widespread humanitarian repercussions. All of this serves to underscore the need for a far more determined global response to the Syrian refugee crisis.

1. Interview with the author. ↩
2. Correspondence with the author. ↩

Lebanon illegally mistreating Palestinians from Syria, says new Amnesty report

[Originally posted at NOW]

It’s always been the case that, in Lebanon, the only thing worse than being a Syrian refugee is being a Palestinian refugee from Syria. Compelled from the beginning of the Syrian conflict to pay an additional entrance charge at the Lebanese border, and receiving systematically less aid from their UNRWA donors than Syrians get from UNHCR, Palestinians have also for the most part had to squeeze themselves into Lebanon’s already saturated Palestinian refugee camps, where it’s by no means uncommon to find ten or more people inhabiting a single, bare-brick room.

What a brand-new Amnesty International report published today shows, however, is how much worse this discrepancy has become, and – crucially – how the latest turn of misery has come as a direct and deliberate consequence of official Lebanese policy.

A pregnant mother of five fleeing airstrikes and famine in Damascus’ Yarmouk camp left stranded on the Syrian side of the Masnaa border crossing. A 12-year-old boy separated from his parents and brother since last year. A 61-year-old disabled man unable to receive medical care or see his wife. At least 40 Palestinians forcibly deported, or refouled, from Lebanon back into Syria. These are just some of the victims encountered by Amnesty of Lebanon’s new restrictions on Palestinian refugees from Syria, who are now obliged at the borders to produce things like entry permits approved by Lebanon’s General Security – not the easiest documents to get hold of in the smashed wastelands of Yarmouk.

Other highlights – or, rather, low points – include a leaked memo instructing airlines not to transport any Palestinian refugees from Syria to Lebanon, and countless stories of those who have made it in only to be continuously jerked around by General Security; made to pay sums far beyond their means in return for promises of paperwork that never materialize. And so on.

Such “blatantly discriminatory” measures, as Amnesty calls them, constitute “serious human rights violations” carried out in “clear breach of international law.” The report concludes with a call for authorities to scrap the new restrictions and allow “all persons fleeing the conflict in Syria, including Palestinian refugees who are normally resident in Syria, to enter.” Read it in full here.

Malnourished refugees facing death in Lebanon

[Originally posted at NOW]

Nearly 2,000 Syrian children under five are at risk of death from malnutrition, a number that UNICEF says could rise rapidly.

9-month-old Ibrahim al-Jarudi has been diagnosed with what the World Health Organization calls "severe acute malnutrition" (NOW/Alex Rowell)

QOB ELIAS, Lebanon: With his frail limbs, gaunt cheeks, and vacant look in his brown eyes, Ibrahim al-Jarudi doesn’t look like most other 9-month-olds. Sitting on the floor of the single room which he and his family of eight share in an open-air concrete building in the central Beqaa Valley, he makes little noise or motion as aid workers from the International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) measure the circumference of his upper arm, which has withered down to the breadth of his wrist.

“Still SAM,” says one to her colleague, using the acronym for severe acute malnutrition, the most dangerous kind of malnourishment defined by the World Health Organization. For a while, Ibrahim was suffering only moderate acute malnutrition (MAM), the aid workers told NOW. But a recent fever and diarrhea onset has caused him to relapse to SAM, which the WHO estimates would put his chances of dying at between 30% and 50% if left untreated.

Ibrahim’s is a relatively new but fast-growing condition among Syrian refugee infants in Lebanon, nearly 2,000 of whom under the age of five are now “at risk of dying” from malnutrition, according to a UNICEF statement last week. A handful have, in fact, already died – perhaps “four or five,” NOW was told by Linda Shaker-Berbari, Lebanon Country Representative at IOCC, which is among UNICEF’s leading partners in tackling the issue. Adding the SAM cases to the more than 8,000 diagnosed with MAM, there are thus over 10,000 acutely malnourished Syrian infants in the country (around 6% of the under-five refugee population), with the prevalence of SAM almost doubling since 2012, according to data sent to NOW by UNICEF. Unprecedented as this is, owing to “aggravating factors” – not least the continuing influx of refugees into Lebanon – UNICEF warns the situation still has the potential to further “deteriorate rapidly.”

As a result, UNICEF and its partners are redoubling their efforts to combat the threat, by increased detection, treatment, and awareness of its causes. At Qob Elias’ public clinic Tuesday, NOW watched as IOCC workers screened some of the dozens of Syrian children brought in by anxious mothers living nearby (often in squalid, makeshift campsites). As well as the upper arm circumference measurement, which detects muscle “wasting,” they pressed the children’s feet with their thumbs to check for oedema, a form of swelling caused by mineral and protein deficiency.

Some children were fine. Others looked fine, but on inspection turned out to have MAM (one of the dangers is parents often don’t realize their children are malnourished until they’re professionally screened). Others, however, were obviously undernourished: their skeletal arms no thicker than broomsticks; their ankles plump with retained fluid.

Immediately afterward, the IOCC workers then measured the children’s height and weight to detect possible “stunting,” a lag in physical growth that, if not quickly addressed, can be irreversible. While not in itself fatal, stunting is still a “serious” form of malnourishment, Shaker-Berbari told NOW. It is also much more prevalent than acute malnutrition, afflicting 17% of refugees under five as of November 2013 (up from 12% in September 2012), according to data sent by UNICEF.

Once diagnosed with acute malnutrition, the children are prescribed a course of intensely nutritious dietary supplements, known as ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTFs), which come in the form of a kind of paste that can be eaten straight out the sachet. These are provided free of charge, paid for by UNICEF and UNHCR. The children’s parents are then asked to return once a week for a check-up, during which the full screening process is repeated, and the treatment amended if necessary.

Supplements by themselves, however, cannot fully solve the problem. As with Ibrahim, illness such as diarrhea can quickly turn a MAM case into a SAM one. And illnesses are easily picked up in the harsh environment of a tent settlement or overcrowded building, where “water and sanitary conditions, shelter conditions, hygiene, and access to healthcare” are gravely inadequate, said Shaker-Berbari.

Yet, aside from the immediate factor of illness, perhaps the single most important underlying cause of malnutrition is a lack of breastfeeding, according to Shaker-Berbari. “Breastfeeding is lifesaving,” she tells NOW, lamenting the “very, very dangerous” practice of refugee mothers using infant formula as a substitute. The problem, IOCC workers in the clinic explained to NOW, is not merely that breast milk is nutritionally superior – particularly in the days immediately after birth, when it contains vital antibodies – but that, without access to clean water and sterilized appliances, refugees using infant formula are recklessly (if unknowingly) putting their children’s health at potentially grave risk.

Indeed, it may well have been for this reason that Ibrahim relapsed to SAM. As his father, Muhammad, passed traditional ceramic cups of coffee around the room, one IOCC worker politely inquired about a milk bottle plainly visible on a nearby table. With some embarrassment, Ibrahim’s mother confessed that though she had started breastfeeding him, she had continued to supplement this with formula. “We’ve told you before, this is the biggest mistake you can make,” said the IOCC worker, urging her to attend an upcoming breastfeeding awareness session at the clinic.

Of course, fueling both the illness and feeding problems is the simple poverty that is also an underlying cause of malnutrition, as well as the root of so much of refugees’ hardship in general. Muhammad insists that the rest of the family have enough food to get by for now, even if they can only afford to eat meat once a week. But this too could soon take a turn for the worse, as the mounting number of adult refugees combines with Lebanon’s declining economy.

“It’s been three months now that I haven’t been able to find work,” Muhammad says. “This room costs $250 a month, and I haven’t been able to pay the landlord for two months.”

“I’ve tried everything, even applying for a visa to go to Germany, but nothing is working out. What am I to do now?”

Arsal on a knife-edge

[Originally posted at NOW]

As Syrians flee new regime airstrikes, Arsal residents fear they may be next.

A girl from Qalamoun who arrived in Wadi Hmayed within the last week (NOW/Alex Rowell)

WADI HMAYED, Lebanon – High up in the rocky, khaki moonscape of the Anti-Lebanon mountains, to the east of the border town of Arsal, stands an army checkpoint that marks the de facto limit of the Lebanese state’s sovereignty. Beyond it lie a series of barren valleys that form a kind of lawless no-man’s-land, technically Lebanese soil but effectively annexed to the Syrian war zone, where regime air strikes, rebel rocket launches, and mutual ambushes and kidnappings happen on a regular basis. Because the Lebanese army itself has no presence in Wadi Hmayed, as the area is known, access is forbidden without special permission, and most international organizations, including the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), do not operate here.

And yet it is here that the bulk of the more than 10,000 new refugee arrivals from the adjacent Qalamoun region of Syria have settled in the past week, fleeing the intense bombardment of the nearby city of Yabrud to a few collections of tents erected by independent NGOs. They’re among the most vulnerable refugees in the country – none has registered with UNHCR so far, and many say they don’t want to – but, having made it out of Qalamoun, most said they were just grateful to be alive when NOW visited one of the camp sites Friday afternoon.

“Praise be to God,” said a remarkably cheerful old man, squatting on the gravel outside his tent, his six children and grandchildren sitting on slender mattresses inside. “We have everything we need here.”

“I haven’t showered since I arrived four days ago, and I have nothing but the clothes on my back, but praise be to God, we’re all happy here,” said a grinning adolescent at a second tent.

Asked what compelled them to leave Yabrud in the last week, they described scenes of immense and indiscriminate bombardment by the Syrian air force.

“The airplanes were bombing our houses, what else could we do?” said one young man, as a crowd gathered outside his tent. “We have kids they killed there. I saw a tank run over a six-year-old boy. And all the time they were dropping barrel bombs. There are still many people buried under the rubble.”

“Initially the regime said they were targeting ‘terrorists’,” said another young man. “But they killed more civilians than fighters.”

Although from Wadi Hmayed they are still close enough to Qalamoun to see the fighter jets on occasion, the refugees said they had no plans to move further inside Lebanon. Some, indeed, were not aware it was even an option – the old man, for instance, was surprised when NOW suggested he could relocate to the Beqaa Valley. As for registering with UNHCR, they were generally divided between those who didn’t know how to and those who didn’t want to.

“Where’s Zahle?” asked a young man unsarcastically, when NOW inquired whether he would be traveling to the UNHCR registration center there (the nearest one to Arsal). The ones who did know where Zahle was were often unwilling, however, to make the trip, fearing harassment or worse at the numerous army and Hezbollah checkpoints on the road from Arsal (NOW was stopped and searched on the return journey by the army, the army intelligence unit, and Hezbollah gunmen). Unless and until they register, they will have to make do with the basic aid UNHCR is able to provide them via its independent NGO partners, as well as what those NGOs themselves can offer. UNHCR spokesperson Joelle Eid told NOW this pre-registration aid includes hygiene and baby kits, stoves, blankets, fuel vouchers, food supplies, and medical assistance where needed.

Arsal in the crosshairs?

Back on the other side of the army checkpoint, in Arsal itself the tension sparked by recent events is palpable. It is this town, after all, that Hezbollah accuses of being the gateway through which car bombs, allegedly rigged in Syria, make their way inside Lebanon, where seven have exploded since the start of 2014 alone. Indeed, just 10 days ago, the army intercepted an explosives-laden car on its way out of Arsal.

For residents here, such accusations are part of a longstanding campaign to target the town for supporting the Syrian opposition. Last month, a rocket attack on the town center killed eight people, including six children, and though a claim of responsibility by the Syrian jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham group surfaced online, Arsal residents issued a statement pointing the finger at Hezbollah.

“We are being punished, because from day one we were the first to support the Syrian revolution, and to treat the Syrian wounded, and receive refugees,” the town’s Deputy Mayor Ahmad Fleeti tells NOW in his office, looking drained as he drags on a cigarette.

Asked about reports that Arsal’s outskirts, including Wadi Hmayed, could be the Syrian regime’s next target should it succeed in Yabrud, Fleeti shifts nervously in his seat.

“If there’s anything we fear, it’s regime airstrikes. We’re not afraid of Hezbollah, because we think they’re smarter than to invade Arsal. If Hezbollah invades Arsal, it will be a civil war for sure, so it’s more convenient for them to let Syria do the work. Yes, who knows, maybe the regime will do in Arsal what it’s doing in Syria.”

One of Arsal’s biggest problems, Fleeti argues, is its negative media image as a hostile “terrorist” hub, which has increasingly turned public opinion against it since the recent wave of car bombings began.

“We’re not takfiris here, we’re Lebanese, and we want to be under the state’s authority,” he tells NOW. “Arsal’s residents are paying with their own blood for all these explosions. Look at Abdallah Izz al-Din, who was an innocent victim killed in the most recent Bir Hassan bombs, and at first they suspected he was the suicide bomber because it can’t be that someone from Arsal is a victim.”

Nevertheless, the more than two years of brutal warfare in Syria have undoubtedly drawn a minority of Arsal’s more than 80,000 residents (some 60% of whom are now Syrians) in the direction of militant fundamentalist ideology. Black-and-white banners bearing Islamist calligraphy decorate the back windows of several cars cruising through the cramped streets. A number of men, especially the youth, groom their facial hair in the Salafist style. And in the tents in Wadi Hmayed, one refugee scarcely out of his teens gave an ominous reply when asked what would happen if the regime succeeded in its Yabrud offensive.

“If the regime wins, all of us young men will go and join the jihad.”

Some names have been withheld at the interviewees’ requests.

Yara Chehayed contributed reporting.

Refugees battling fatal snow storm

[Originally posted at NOW]

“Alexa,” which has already claimed two lives, intensified Friday, adding to the hardships faced by Lebanon’s Syrian refugee population.

Puddles left by rain and snow in the Nahiriyeh camp's mud (NOW/Alex Rowell)

BAR ELIAS, Lebanon – The “Alexa” rain and snow storm, which has already claimed two lives and shut down schools nationwide since it first struck Lebanon Tuesday afternoon, grew yet more intense on Friday, forcing the closure of the arterial Beirut-Damascus highway and covering everything more than 400 meters above sea level in fresh layers of snow.

For the residents of Nahiriyeh, one of an estimated 280 unofficial Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley, this means an increasingly desperate battle against the elements over the coming days with few tools at their disposal.

Small snowflakes were already falling when NOW visited the sodden camp Friday morning, trudging through inches of muddy puddles as a stiff and icy wind swept through the agricultural plains. Shivering refugees, some wearing just sandals and a single layer of clothing, came out to greet us before ushering us into their makeshift tents.

“Seriously cold,” replied Muhammad, a 27-year-old father of two from Homs, when NOW asked how the past few days had gone. Muhammad and his wife, who finally fled Syria in April after months of internal displacement, are among the luckier of Nahiriyeh’s residents: below the carpet and thin mattresses that furnish the main room is a solid concrete surface, laid by Muhammad himself using materials supplied by an NGO. Other tents NOW saw in the camp, by contrast, often had floors of gravel or bare mud.

And Muhammad’s tent also houses a metal portable fireplace, complete with piping leading up to the ceiling in lieu of a chimney. Despite the freezing temperatures outside, the heat emitted from the fire makes it possible to remove at least one layer of clothing indoors. “We only put it on when we absolutely have to, otherwise the fuel would soon run out,” he told NOW as he added a thin square of cheap wood to the flames. Though most Nahiriyeh residents have forked out the $50 necessary to buy one of these, they complain that they rarely last long before breaking apart. The fuel, at least, can be sourced free from monthly vouchers distributed by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

In preparation for what they long knew would be a harsh winter, most Nahiriyeh residents have by now installed enough layers of roofing and walls – using everything from scrap canvas fabric to former billboard advertisements to insulating sheets supplied by the Danish Refugee Council – to keep out the vast majority of the snow and rain. “Some water leaked into our kitchen, but nothing so far has come in the main room,” said Muhammad. Nevertheless, a tear in the fabric of one tent NOW saw – pictured above – had let in a thick patch of gritty snow.

And the rain has created a serious problem, indeed a health hazard, outside the tents themselves. The hole in the ground, surrounded by a telephone booth-sized wooden shed, that serves as the sole toilet for the camp’s thirty families has now flooded, leaving a large pool of raw waste congealing just meters from a row of tents. “This is definitely the biggest problem we face today,” said Ahmad, another resident. “We asked the UN a month ago to help us make proper drainage. They said they’d be back soon, but they never came.” UNHCR was not immediately available for comment.

As a consequence, Muhammad said jaundice has become widespread in the camp, and sure enough, NOW saw more than one resident with yellow-tinged eyes. Because many are without valid identity documents, their access to medical care is limited to the sporadic offerings of generally underfunded and overstretched NGOs.

Yet despite these hardships, Nahiriyeh’s residents see little point attempting to relocate.

“Where would we go?” asked Muhammad rhetorically. “If we go back to Syria, the regime will take us. And besides, our neighborhood – Khalidiyeh – like all neighborhoods in Homs, is now completely destroyed.”

Luna Safwan contributed reporting.

*Some of the above names have been changed at the interviewees’ requests.

Before the floods

[Originally posted at NOW]

The UN estimates at least 10,000 Syrian refugees living in tents in Lebanon will soon face flooding.

The center of the unofficial Nahiriyeh camp, near the Beqaa town of Bar Elias (NOW/Alex Rowell)

BAR ELIAS, Lebanon – Arriving at what locals call the “Nahiriyeh camp,” erected on a rectangular patch of gravelly sand hidden among the agrarian fields of the central Beqaa Valley, NOW briefly received a hero’s welcome on Thursday morning. The residents – Syrian refugees from Qusayr and elsewhere in Homs Province – crowded around the car, eagerly asking if we had come to hand out aid. The hope in their eyes quickly drained when we said we were only journalists, and most walked away, heads bowed, muttering under their breath. Those who stayed wasted no time in reeling off a long list of grievances: serious healthcare needs they couldn’t pay for; children denied places at schools; dangerously unclean drinking water; lack of diapers for newborns.

And yet, unenviable as living conditions for Nahiriyeh’s several hundred residents already are, they are soon to get much worse. It has begun to rain in Lebanon in the past fortnight, and though predictions of the harshest winter in a hundred years may be unreliable, snow will nevertheless cover much of the Beqaa in the coming winter months, which is grim news for the more than 270,000 Syrian refugees that the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has accounted for in the agricultural plain. Especially vulnerable are the more than 80,000 refugees UNHCR estimates are living in what it calls informal tented settlements (ITS), which are makeshift camps in all but name (unlike Jordan and Turkey, Lebanon does not officially have Syrian refugee camps). Of these settlements, UNHCR says 12% are located in flood-prone areas, which means at least 9,600 refugees will be living in flooded tents once the rain season gets fully underway.

Nahiriyeh’s residents will be among them. Invited inside the home of Umm Ahmad, a warm-spirited grandmother from Qusayr, NOW saw few means by which the family of eight would be able to escape the rain and snow. The roof comprised cardboard box panels supported by wooden beams. The walls were carpets held in place with nails. The floor was a mat thrown over an uneven, cracked layer of concrete; unprofessionally put in place by the refugees themselves. The only furniture, such as it was, consisted of a ring of uncomfortably thin mattresses, functioning as seats, children’s play areas, and beds. Asked how she planned to cope with the coming winter, Umm Ahmad could only laugh: “What you see is what we have.”

Nor were things better in Umm Muhammad’s slightly larger dwelling around the corner. Here, the roof had been fashioned out of woven rice sack material, some of which had begun to fray already. “Look at this,” she told NOW as her children looked on silently. “When it rains, this place is going to fill up.”

In anticipation of these humanitarian disasters-in-waiting, UNHCR and its NGO partners are building on the experiences of the past two winters since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis, and have been working on a so-called ‘winterization’ plan since the summer, according to UNHCR spokesperson Joelle Eid.

“In the Beqaa, we have around 280 informal settlements at risk of flooding,” Eid told NOW. “As soon as you have a lot of rain, the floor turns into mud, and those tents are at risk of flooding.” One planned response involves identifying all flood-prone locations, and then re-locating the refugees within them either to shelters or to Lebanese host families (who would then receive compensation from UNHCR), wherever possible.

A parallel initiative, which Eid told NOW has already started, is the distribution of “sealing kits” to refugees – that is, materials with which flood-prone homes could be sufficiently fortified to keep out the wet. Moreover, Eid added that distribution of winter-specific aid, such as warm clothing, blankets, mattresses, and heating fuel “will start in the coming weeks.”

However, Nahiriyeh’s residents – who say they are burning cardboard indoors to stay warm at night – are unconvinced they will see much aid come their way.

“We’ve been promised many things for the winter, but so far there has been nothing.”

Luna Safwan contributed reporting.

Speaking on Monocle 24 about Syrian refugee businesses facing closure in Lebanon

I spoke to Monocle 24 radio yesterday about unlicensed Syrian refugee businesses facing closure in Lebanon. Episode available here (I come on at 16:35).

A chance for Zaatari's children

[Originally posted at NOW]

This is the second in a two-part series based on NOW’s visit to Jordan’s Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees on May 5, 2013. Read the first article, ‘Zaatari’s mukhabarrat wars,’ here.

Three refugee children from Nawa, near Daraa, in Zaatari camp (NOW/Alex Rowell)

ZAATARI CAMP, Jordan – Just meters behind the Jordanian military checkpoint that forms the entrance to the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp, small, expressionless children wait to pounce on new arrivals, offering to help with luggage and, failing that, simply begging for money.

“Just one dinar,” said Abd al-Rahman, a bony 12 year-old from Homs, tugging at NOW’s forearm. “My father was killed in Syria. I have to work to feed my mother and brothers.”

Walk further down the main road, which doubles as a bustling shopping boulevard, and the children are everywhere – pushing wheelbarrows, carrying cardboard boxes on their shoulders, and selling anything from phone cards to foreign currency to live chickens.

It was a sizzling hot afternoon in the rocky plains of Jordan’s northern desert, and as NOW ventured deeper into the camp, the irradiating sunlight bounced off the tarmac, compounding the blinding effect of the dust kicked up by the blasting winds. “I’m so thirsty. I need water,” said Abd al-Rahman, patting his lips, who did not leave NOW’s side until a dinar ($1.40 USD) was handed over.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), as of last month some 57% of registered Zaatari refugees were under 18. That amounts to over 90,000 children in the camp, many without one or both parents and condemned, for the most part, to lives of manual labor.

As such, some aid organizations are trying to create alternatives for Zaatari’s youth and prepare them for an eventual post-camp future. At present, there are two schools in the camp offering free, basic education for all (the “Bahrain School” and the imaginatively-titled “School No. 2”). But Mohammed Hadid, the Jordanian project coordinator of the Finnish government-funded Finn Church Aid (FCA) NGO, seeks to provide much more.

In his portable cabin office in a fenced-off gravel plot on the west side of the camp, Hadid explains the various types of training his organization has offered refugees since opening in December 2012.

“First of all, there is literacy training. For now this is limited to Arabic, but we hope in the coming weeks to add English too. Second is vocational skills – we asked the young men and women what they wanted to be trained in, and we will start accordingly. The men mostly chose electrician training, and the women chose sewing. Third, we provide physical exercises – circus acrobatics, gymnastics and juggling for now, with football and others in the next few months,” he told NOW.

The courses are open for all refugees between the ages of 15 and 24, and run five days a week. So far, Hadid says he’s attracted around 150 regular attendees, and though the number is growing, he faces a number of social and cultural challenges in boosting enrollment.

“It’s a very sensitive age bracket,” he told NOW. “For men, they feel a pressure to work and earn money for their families. As for women, this is seen as the time to get married, so many are reluctant to leave the house for fear of unwanted male attention.”

Accordingly, Hadid is often compelled to personally meet families in order to win their trust. “We have no choice but to go tent to tent, explaining what it is we do and trying to convince parents that this is in the best interests of the children.” In keeping with the general cultural conservatism of the refugee population, all courses are gender-segregated.

Those who do show up speak highly of the experience. 18-year-old Muhammad Rublan, from Daraa, currently takes the gymnastics course. “I love it, it’s bringing a real positive energy,” he told NOW. “In Syria, we never heard of this type of sport.”

The exercise also provides a welcome relief from the hardship of camp life. “In Zaatari we have no jobs, we have no activities to do during the day. This sport is a stress relief that keeps us active.”

As an added benefit for camp residents, FCA hires staff exclusively from the refugee population. Instructors are paid 10JD ($14) per five-hour working day, while two security guards and a cleaner get an hourly rate of 1.5JD ($2.10 USD) – no fortune, but certainly enough to make a difference when compared to the 2-4JD ($2-6 USD) that, depending on size, goes to whole families per day in cash assistance from UNHCR.

One such employee is Anwar Abu Jaysh, a Daraa refugee in his mid-twenties, who has worked for FCA as an Arabic-English translator for a month.

“I liked the idea very much when I heard about it,” said Abu Jaysh in English – a language he learned during childhood years spent in the United Arab Emirates. “It means I’m able to help other refugees while also earning money for myself.”

Abu Jaysh has even mulled the idea of starting his own organization one day. “Some of the very young children are often behaving badly. When there’s a demonstration, for example, you’ll see kids as young as four or five throwing rocks at people. I would like to make a project for these children too.”

Yet, for the dozen young boys gathering by the entrance to the FCA grounds as we speak, such mischief seems far from the mind. “They’re about to start one of the physical circuits,” explains Hadid. With a gesture to a security guard, the gate opens and they sprint noisily toward a large activity tent, where an instructor greets them atop a unicycle. However grueling the rest of their day may be, for this moment, at least, they look happy.

Yara Chehayed contributed reporting from Beirut.

[Video] Palestinian refugees from Syria launch hunger strike

[Originally posted at NOW]

There is no such thing as a lucky or privileged refugee, and to contrast the sufferings of different displaced peoples is rather like choosing between cancers. At the same time, it has for some time been an inescapable conclusion that if there’s one thing worse than being a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, it’s being a Palestinian refugee from Syria in Lebanon.

As such, it’s sad but not overly surprising that a group of such Palestinians has decided to launch a hunger strike near the United Nations office in Beirut in protest at systematic under-provision of aid by the UN Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA), the body responsible for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

“Our people are sleeping on the street, we are asking for food baskets, for medication. When we go to the hospital they say we need to pay 40% of the bill, and I don’t have a penny,” says one of the strikers in the above clip. “UNRWA, who raises the slogan of freedom and human rights, are neglecting us and treating us like animals.”

Neither the scarcity of aid nor the resentment it fosters are new. As I reported in January, Syrian refugees – who are handled by a different organization, UNHCR – simply receive better benefits than Palestinians from Syria, as UNRWA itself admits. This is not, however, on account of some conspiracy or prejudice against Palestinians, but rather the problem that plagues UNHCR and UNRWA alike: money.

Back in January, UNRWA had only about half the funds necessary to cater for the 20,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria in Lebanon. As of Monday, UNRWA estimates the number is now closer to 40,000, and there is no evidence that the funding situation has improved.

It might be worth mentioning, then, that you can donate to UNRWA here.

Thanks to Yara Chehayed for translation.

Palestinian refugees from Syria shortchanged on aid

[Originally posted at NOW]

Beddawi's narrow streets are packed with playing children (NOW/Alex Rowell)

In a makeshift office in the heart of the Beddawi Palestinian refugee camp, furnished only with worn sofas and an almost antique desktop computer, Muhammad Hussein takes deep drags of a cigarette to steady his emotions as he talks.

“The feeling cannot be described. We see Syrians being treated like human beings while we are being humiliated. We are reminded that wherever we go, we are Palestinians, and our dignity is being stepped on.”

Hussein is one of an estimated 20,000 Palestinian refugees to have fled the warfare in neighboring Syria and made for one of Lebanon’s camps – in this case Beddawi, a 1-square-kilometre concrete and steel maze on the northeastern outskirts of Tripoli. Unlike Syrian refugees, who receive aid from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Palestinians are handled by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), whose self-described “limited response” to the influx has left the new arrivals increasingly resentful. Last Monday, residents led by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) demonstrated outside the camp’s UNRWA office to protest what they see as unjust discrimination vis-à-vis their Syrian counterparts.

In Beddawi’s DFLP headquarters – where NOW interviewed Hussein – party official Atef Khalil explained the ordeal facing incoming Palestinian refugees. It begins the moment they reach the Masnaa border crossing, where Lebanese General Security charges a 25,000LL ($17) entrance fee per head. Hussein, a Safad native who lived in Damascus’ Yarmouk camp until fleeing in December, showed NOW his entrance card with a stamp confirming his payment of the charge. Thereafter, General Security will demand 50,000LL ($33) from him every three months. Syrians, by contrast, may enter Lebanon free of charge.

When they get to Beddawi, new arrivals then face an extraordinary shortage of housing. Six years ago, the camp hosted some 15,000 refugees. That number doubled almost overnight during the 2007 conflict in the nearby Nahr al-Bared camp, and stands today at over 40,000 by Khalil’s estimate, including some 800 families recently arrived from Syria. Every refugee NOW spoke to in the camp named housing as their number-one concern, followed closely by food provisions and medical assistance. One family home comprised 40 people squeezed into just three main rooms.

To be sure, UNRWA has offered new arrivals various forms of aid, as part of its Regional Syria Humanitarian Response Plan. Once in December, says Khalil, they handed out $40 in cash and a $25 supermarket coupon to each refugee. He adds they have also arranged for some children’s education, repaired an old building in the Ain al-Hilweh camp and provided heating equipment to those refugees in the Beqaa Valley.

A recent UNRWA report details more fully the components of its response plan, stating it has so far provided new Palestinian refugees in Lebanon with non-food items such as mattresses and blankets, emergency health care, emergency education, and protection against arrests and forced return to Syria. Furthermore, UNRWA spokeswoman Hoda Samra told NOW that on one occasion in November, they distributed $50 winter clothing vouchers to refugees in the Beqaa.

However, the report also notes that, “Unfortunately, UNRWA has not yet been able to provide food or cash assistance, which has raised sensitivity among the [refugees] who feel discriminated against compared to provisions being made to Syrian refugees.” (UNHCR provides registered Syrian refugees with a monthly 45,000LL [$30] supermarket coupon in addition to non-food items – aid Syrians, in turn, say is insufficient.) UNRWA has pledged to appeal for $13 million between January and June 2013 to address these shortcomings, with around $8 million earmarked for cash assistance.

The key reason for the discrepancy between UNHCR’s provisions to Syrians and UNRWA’s to Palestinians, according to Samra, is financial. “We raised an $8 million appeal in September that was not well-funded,” she told NOW. “And then we had to revise the appeal in December to $13 million, out of which we so far have about 50 percent. This means we’ve been unable to provide half of the services that we intend to.”

To make matters worse, the $13 million appeal was designed to cater for 20,000 new refugees. On a visit to Lebanon last week, UNRWA Secretary General Filippo Grandi said that number had already been reached, with more than 200 arriving every day. This means UNRWA’s current budget, which is already underfunded by half, would be insufficient to meet refugees’ needs even if it were fully provided.

“Unfortunately, that’s true, and we’ll have to revise accordingly,” said Samra. “When we budgeted for 20,000 new refugees, there were only about 10,000 in the country. Unfortunately, we reached the 20,000 figure very quickly. So now we will first have to receive what we appealed for, and then appeal for more.”

Both Samra and Khalil are hopeful that Wednesday’s international donor conference on the Syrian crisis in Kuwait will yield a funding windfall. Various nations have pledged a total of $1.2 billion to help refugees across the region, $18 million of which Samra says could go to UNRWA in Lebanon.

Unless and until these funds reach the refugees themselves, however, the mood in the camps seems likely to deteriorate further.

Amani Hamad contributed reporting.

Class struggle: New school year leaves Syrian refugees stranded

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon, with Assem Bazzi]

As we sit in a dusty, spartan classroom at the eastern edge of the Beqaa Valley, waiting to speak to Muhammad, the man looking after the hundreds of Syrian refugees housed in the school, a young woman bursts through his door in floods of tears. She wants to go back to Syria, she tells him, and hand herself over to President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. Her remaining brothers—the ones who haven’t already been killed—have been captured by the regime, and she’s come up with a plan to trade her freedom for their lives. Muhammad calmly refuses, reminding her that she has children here to look after.

It’s a sign of the despair taking over the refugees who have now been away from their homes in Damascus for over six weeks. Things have certainly changed since NOW Lebanon was last here in July. “Back then, there were between 200 and 300 families from Damascus in the area,” says Muhammad. “Now there are over 1,100, driven away by the ongoing killings and massacres. The numbers are increasing every five minutes.”

Though food and water are becoming scarce, the refugees have enough for now, says Muhammad. Sure enough, as we tour the hallways and classrooms, dodging the children running playfully around our knees, there do seem to be sufficient supplies of bread, water and ICRC cardboard boxes. No thanks to the Lebanese government, however: “We haven’t received any aid from the government, and are surviving solely on local donations and helpers,” says Muhammad.

Indeed, Fadi Yarak, director-general of the Ministry of Education, told NOW Lebanon that his department was no longer responsible for the refugees. “UNHCR takes care of them now,” he said.

In any case, the refugees’ most immediate concern is not aid but the impending start of the school year. This will force them to relocate once again—and they fear their next hosts may not be so benevolent.

“When school starts here on September 15, there will be no more room for the refugees,” says Muhammad. And it is here that sectarian considerations enter the picture. The refugees, being Sunni, have so far confined themselves to Sunni villages. “But there is no more room in Sunni schools anywhere. There are places in Shiite areas, such as Baalbek and Hermel, but the refugees don’t want to go. They’re afraid of being harmed or even kidnapped.”

Dana Sleiman, Public Information Associate for UNHCR in Lebanon, told NOW Lebanon that plans for supporting the refugees’ transition out of the schools were underway, but a request for further details was not answered at press time.

Accordingly, some refugees have already taken matters into their own hands. “I managed to find a home in Zahle,” says Omar, who has been in the school with his wife and children since July. A small dairy factory owner back in Damascus, he has also found part-time work as a blacksmith and mason in the Beqaa.

Others, however, are less fortunate. “I don’t have a clue what I’m going to do,” says Fatima, who breaks down in tears while telling us her story. “If I leave the school, I might lose contact with my relatives back in Syria.” She and her family are currently looking for a place to rent.

And accommodation isn’t the only worry for some. “My husband has a heart problem,” says Nour. “He’s currently being treated for free in a nearby hospital. I have to move out but I can’t leave him alone there.” Her children are still in Syria, apparently unable to cross the border.

Remarkably, despite their serious and mounting problems, the refugees constantly repeat how grateful they are to be in Lebanon. “We are so glad to be alive,” says Nour. “Every day we thank God for giving us another day of living.”

Some of the above names have been changed at the interviewees’ requests.