By Mohammed Zaatari
RASHIDIEH/AIN Al-HILWEH, Lebanon:
Some recently arrived Palestinian families who fled refugee camps in Syria
hesitate to speak to journalists. Others are more outspoken, lamenting the fact
that Palestinians spend their lives being displaced from one location to
another.
One new resident of the Rashidieh
Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon, Um Saleh Abdul-Fattah, is of the
latter disposition.
“In 1948 we left Palestine and we
were displaced to the Rashidieh refugee camp. Then we went to the town of Barja
in Iqlim al-Kharroub, and then we ended up living in Syria where we had a
dignified life, and today we’re again refugees in Rashidieh,” she explains.
Many cases are similar to that of
Abdul-Fattah, who fled the Tadamon neighborhood near Damascus at the beginning
of August. Hundreds of Palestinian families fled fighting in Syria and are now
staying with relatives or friends in Palestinian refugee camps across Lebanon,
where overcrowding is rife and the physical infrastructure limited and often
hazardous.
The first families fled Syria in
mid-July and others have since continued to arrive.
The number of Palestinians crossing
the border from Syria has doubled over the past few days in the midst of heavy
fighting across the country’s cities and following last week’s attack on the
Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.
Most of the families are staying in
the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp on the outskirts of Sidon, and Rashidieh, which
lies to the south of Tyre and is only 17 kilometers from the border with
Israel.
Abdul-Fattah yearns for the life she
and her children left behind in Tadamon.
“How nice life was there!” she
exclaims. “There’s a big difference between there and here: Here is misery and
unemployment. We are begging for our daily bread, we have problems coming and
going from the camp, and my children have no work.”
Observing her new living conditions,
the mother adds: “Look at the space we’re living in. It can barely accommodate
two people. We even put our clothesline inside the house.”
Abdul-Fattah, who originally hails
from Haifa, says that 60 Palestinian families have fled to Rashidieh. Some are staying
with relatives and some have rented houses, she says.
Um Mohammad Khaled, a mother of two
children, denies that she was actually living as a refugee in Syria: “In Syria
we had a dignified life, unlike our relatives here ... There education, health care,
housing and even employment were available.
“We came here a month ago, because
we could no longer bear the shelling and killing. They ruined our lives. We
were living in security and peace,” Khaled adds.
Another new arrival to Rashidieh,
Omar, is just 3 years old. Since he left Syria, he has cried constantly, asking
to see his father who stayed behind in the Deraa refugee camp.
Sahar, Omar’s mother, explains her
decision to leave: “My mother-in-law was killed just near me when a bullet hit
her head. Killing, blood, yelling and cries of help are all that surrounds you.
That’s why I fled with my three kids.”
Meanwhile, Israa, Omar’s eldest
sister, plays with her brother to distract him from his tears.
“We should go back and live there.
Here everything is different. Here the only thing that’s better is there is no
death,” she says.
Israa, who left school in Deraa
before the end of the academic year, also says she is concerned about her
father.
The mixed Syrian-Palestinian accents
indicate that siblings Tala, Lara and Jawad Nour come from the Husayniya
neighborhood in the Sit Zainab district of Damascus.
Their elder brother apologizes to
reporters as he refuses to comment or allow photographers to take shots of his
siblings or their home. However, the three kids speak for their family as they
play with a football and a bicycle.
“Here the space is small [whereas in
Syria] there’s a big space for us to play freely. Here we are afraid that we
will smash window glass,” says Jawad.
But Tala intervenes, saying that
despite the fact that the camp does not look like their home in Syria, people
in Rashidieh are kind.
“I made friends in the neighborhood
and they gave me toys they had,” she says.
Ali Murra, an official in a social
association supervised by the Hamas movement, told The Daily Star that they are
carrying out surveys to find the number of new refugees arriving daily in the
camp.
He said they would provide the
refugees with food parcels and domestic utensils in an urgent manner.
In Ain al-Hilweh, a number of newcomers
complained about not being able to go outside the camp due to their not having
residency permits.
However, Palestinian sources told
The Daily Star that the general directorate of General Security has promised to
issue special permits for these refugees that would allow them to wander
outside the camp. The sources said these permits would expire once the holders
return to Syria.
Fouad Othman, who is the social
affairs representative for the Palestinian Popular Committee in Sidon’s refugee
camps, said that more than 300 Palestinian families have arrived in Ain
al-Hilweh and the nearby Miyeh Miyeh camp.
“The U.N. Relief and Works Agency
should assume its responsibility and swiftly implement an emergency program
because it is responsible for providing relief to Palestinians in Lebanon and
in Syria,” Othman told The Daily Star. “There are some [newcomers] whose cases
are really miserable and cannot wait.”
Othman, who also called on the
Palestine Liberation Organization to implement an emergency program, said that
many of the newcomers are currently staying in public spaces in the camps.
He also called on the Lebanese state
to facilitate the movement of the fleeing Palestinians in and out of the camps
and exempt them from the need for permits. “They cannot wait for permits to be
issued,” he said.
Othman urged the state as well to
ask international organizations to provide aid to the Palestinian refugees who
fled to Lebanon.
While most of those who came from
Yarmouk refused to talk about what happened there, a man in his sixties said
shells fell on the camp, adding that the attack came without reason.
“Maybe it’s a message for us not to
participate [in the uprising],” he speculated. “Blood has been accompanying us
since 1948.
“Since then we have been attacked by friends and
enemies.”http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Aug-07/183678-palestinian-refugees-in-syria-flee-strife.ashx#axzz22qi5LSNX
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