By Rakan al-Fakih
ARSAL, Lebanon: Abu Mustafa was
forced to leave his home in Homs two months ago. The threat of death had become
all too real because of the daily shooting and shelling in one of the most
war-ravaged cities in the Syria, so the 40-year-old decided that it was time to
leave.
“Life became impossible from lack of
security and lack of bread and medicine because of the continuous
confrontations and battles between the regime’s army and the Free Syrian Army
fighters,” Abu Mustafa said about the 11-month uprising against President
Bashar Assad’s government.
Mustafa and his family of five left
Homs and crossed 60 kilometers of smuggler roads to reach the border town of
Masharih al-Qaa.
There, they were met by refugee aid
workers from the Bekaa Valley in east Lebanon who drove them to Arsal, where
they were given food and shelter.
However, troubles are far from over
for Abu Mustafa, who won’t give his full name for security reasons. He and his
family left a nation wracked by sectarian strife and entered one where basic
supplies are hard to come by and their welcome is tenuous.
Over 600 Syrian families have taken
refuge in the sparsely populated Bekaa region. Local aid agencies say there
simply aren’t enough supplies to go around for the nearly 120 Syrian refugee
families that are arriving weekly, up from just 30 families a week ago.
Refugees say there is a deficiency
in things like shelter, food, heating and education opportunities for children.
There’s also a hovering fear of being identified by the Syrian regime’s
security forces in Lebanon, who often arrest relatives who remained in their
country.
Aid workers say that fear is
compounded by the refugees’ current position as a major point of conflict
between Lebanon’s two rival political coalitions.
The current March 8 government is
formed by parties sympathetic to the Syrian regime, while the March 14
opposition has accused the ruling alliance of working with Assad to crack down
on dissidents leaving the country.
Families shy away from the spotlight
because they fear cooperation between the security apparatuses of the two
countries could lead to their detention in their temporary home.
In recent months, a number of Syrian
activists have reportedly been detained by Lebanese security services or
kidnapped by pro-regime forces in the country.
According to the latest report from
the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees there are over 6,000
registered refugees in Lebanon and an unknown number, likely to number several
thousand, who are living in the country unregistered.
International aid efforts are
largely concentrated in the north, which has experienced the largest influx of
refugees, but the numbers of Syrians in the Bekaa have also been growing.
They enter the Bekaa either through
legitimate border crossings at Jousieh in the north, along the international
highway between Baalbek and Homs, or through Masnaa on the Damascus road.
Desperate refugees also try entering
through a number of illegitimate crossings that are spread from the village of
Masharih al-Qaa and Wadi Fisan in north Bekaa to the central district of
Rashaya.
The largely Sunni refugees seek out
cities and villages with co-religionists, places where they think they will
most likely find protection and compassion. The two towns of Arsal in northern
Bekaa and Saadnayel in central Bekaa houses the largest number of refugee
families. But most villages and towns in the Bekaa have refugees including the
cities of Baalbek and Zahle, in varying numbers.
The need increases daily for more
homes to shelter refugee families. Many homes are occupied by more than one
family.
But homes that are falling apart,
empty farms and tents sent up by agricultural workers in the Bekaa plains also
provide a shelter for refugees.
Heavy rain and low temperatures from
a recent storm killed one refugee child in the Bekaa last weekend.
The number of tents across the Bekaa
Valley has multiplied since the start of the uprising in Lebanon’s neighbor as
many refugees sought out relatives of theirs who work in agriculture and have
been living in Lebanon for years.
The absence of a Lebanese government
committee in charge of receiving refugees, taking care of their status and
providing them with basic needs has also led to confusion in keeping track of
and helping them.
March 14 politicians in the Bekaa
and civil society organizations in the area have decided to shoulder the
responsibility for the refugees themselves, forming a coalition to aid Syrians
there. But they say more needs to be done.
Shekih Ayman Sharqieh, the
coordinator for the coalition in the Bekaa, said his organization was formed
because the country’s Higher Relief Council has not performed its role in
meeting the basic needs of refugees.
Sharqieh calls on the government to
speed up the process of organizing the refugees and developing a database of
those needing aid.
“The Syrian refugee in Lebanon is
the responsibility of the Lebanese state and society, which is represented by
the government because they are people who left their homes and villages to
escape arrest and are now suffering in Lebanon from fear, hunger and disease,”
Sharqieh says.
Coalition member Abdullah Tassa also
says there is uneven aid distribution between refugees in the north and those
in the Bekaa. He said a deficit of aid has put the burden on the local
coalition to survey and count refugees, who are estimated to be arriving at a rate
of around 120 families weekly.
The coalition has so far been able
to ensure some blankets, heaters, food and medicine for the refugees, he says.
Tassa says failure to provide
support will prompt the coalition to call for street protests in order to demand
that the Lebanese government take care of the refugees, who have outstripped
their abilities to provide aid.
He calls for distancing the issue of
refugees from the dispute between political forces over the events taking place
in Syria and looking at the issue as a humanitarian one.
“The suffering of any child or ill person who is
not given aid in Lebanon is a crime by every political official and an insult
to every Lebanese,” Tassa says.http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Feb-22/164178-aid-and-safety-lacking-for-syrian-refugees-in-the-bekaa.ashx#axzz1n0z4CCop
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