Displaced Syrians struggle to find shelter in Lebanon as aid efforts fall short

Some shelters in Lebanon are reportedly turning away Syrians who find themselves once again displaced since Israel launched a wave of deadly airstrikes on Lebanon on Monday.

Certain shelters are reportedly prioritising displaced Lebanese and Palestinians, leaving some Syrians to turn to locals who had opened their homes to tens of thousands who were forced to flee southern Lebanon amid intense bombardment.

Israel's indiscriminate assault on Lebanon has so far killed over 570 people and injured thousands in its first 48 hours.

"When the shelling began and rockets fell near our house, we fled for Sidon city," Zeina Ammar, a Syrian refugee living with her family in the southern village of Ansar, told The New Arab's Arabic language sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

"When we arrived after over seven hours on the road, we went to the municipality, but they refused to let us go to any school shelter or register our names, telling us priority was being given to displaced Lebanese," she said.

She, her husband and their three children were forced to spend the night in Martyr's Square.

"Where will we go? Where will we sleep? We cannot return to Syria and I do not know what to do," she said.

Ismail Hamoud, a Syrian from Afrin who settled in Borj Rahal in Tyre district after fleeing Syria, said that young men in Sidon took him and his family to the municipality to register their names.

However, "at the municipality, they told us Syrians couldn't register, and that priority was being given to Lebanese and Palestinians, and that we were the responsibility of Caritas (aid group)", he says.

He tried to contact Caritas but was unable to get hold of anyone.

"We went back to the municipality, and they asked us to contact the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, but none of their employees responded," he said.

After repeatedly seeking assistance from the municipality, the family was left with no choice but to sleep on the street.

"We are ten families and I have a family of six," he said, adding: "We couldn’t eat and there are no toilets. At the same time, we cannot return to Syria because we are with the opposition."

Rojid Nahsudado, also originally from Afrin, has been living with her family in the town of Qasmiyeh in southern Lebanon for six years.

She said when the shelling had started near Qasmiyeh, they had fled on foot and walked a long distance until a passerby picked them up and dropped them in Sidon.

"We arrived at nine pm on Monday and slept in the open. No one would take us in," she said, adding that her son had thalassemia and needed monthly blood transfusions, but at the moment they didn't even have food or drink.

"My son is young and sick. They said priority is going to the Lebanese, but humanity doesn’t differentiate between Syrians and Lebanese."

The United Nations said on Wednesday that some 90,000 people had been displaced in Lebanon this week.

Since Monday, the UN's International Organization for Migration has recorded "90,530 newly displaced persons", a statement said.

Among them, "many of the more than 111,000 people displaced since October... are likely to have been secondarily displaced", a statement from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs added, referring to the start of the cross-border attacks between Israel and Hezbollah.

This article is based on an article which appeared in our Arabic edition by Intisar al-Danan on 25 September 2024. To read the original article click here.