By Olivia Alabaster, Yasmine Saker
BEIRUT: Hafiza has been staying with
relatives since she arrived to Lebanon from Damascus 15 days ago. But her
husband is sick, and she has no way to make money but to beg. Cradling her
young daughter, Hafiza sits on the sidewalk in Hamra, Ras Beirut’s major
thoroughfare.
People begging have long been a
common sight in the neighborhood, with many, especially children, gathering in
Hamra’s busiest areas to ask for money or to sell roses. Many of these are
widely believed to be managed by gangs, their profits taken from them at the
end of the day.
But there is a growing Syrian
refugee presence among the area’s beggars, children and adults unable to
support themselves any other way.
Hafiza and her family have been
staying with relatives near Cite Sportive in Beirut since fleeing the Sayyida
Zeinab area of the Syrian capital just over two weeks ago. She has seven
children to support, and her youngest Eman, who is two and a half, has had a
high fever for two days now.
“We have received no aid: I wouldn’t
know where to get it? Where would we go?” Hafiza, 38, asks.
“I have no money to buy my daughter
medicine.”
Hafiza says that the Lebanese have
been kind and generous since her arrival. On a busy Thursday evening, however,
when the street is teeming with people, very few have stopped to talk to her or
give her money, except when she is struggling to wake up Eman, and nearby
shopkeepers bring her water and tissues.
The U.N. and partners are currently
providing aid to over 35,000 Syrian refugees across the country, but the real
total is thought to be far higher, possibly around 90,000, as so many have not
formally registered with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
The vast majority of displaced
Syrians are residing in north Lebanon or in the Bekaa, either with relatives,
host families or in abandoned buildings renovated by charities. But as numbers
have increased and the uprising in Syria has drawn on, more and more are coming
to Beirut and the suburbs.
Raghda Serhal, sitting at a pavement
cafe, says that while the majority of child beggars in the neighborhood have
always been Syrian – alongside a handful of Turks, Lebanese and Palestinians –
the overall number, and proportion, of Syrians is increasing.
She often chats with the children in
the area and believes that “before, the Syrian children used to go back in the
fall to go back to school, and their parents would bring them back to Lebanon
to work in the summer. But this year, because of the situation in Syria, they
have not gone back, and have remained in Lebanon.”
Sitting at another cafe nearby,
Moussa al-Hajj also says he has noticed an increase in Syrian beggars in the
area. While he believes the Lebanese government should be doing more to help
them, he also questions the role of aid organizations.
“There are hundreds of
nongovernmental organizations in Lebanon, where are they? Many of them simply
do nothing.”
The government’s Higher Relief
Committee – the emergencies body which had been working alongside the UNHCR to
register refugees, fund medical care and distribute aid – announced last month
that it would have to cease assistance to refugees, due to a lack of funds.
However Cabinet announced Thursday a LL2 billion loan to the HRC, although it
is not yet clear when this will kick in.
Hafiza was not aware of the UNHCR
office, which is situated in Ramlet al-Baida in Beirut, but Dana Sleiman,
UNHCR’s spokesperson in Beirut, tells The Daily Star that “We are known to be
here, that’s how all refugees find us.”
However, she adds, the agency is
working on highlighting the existence, and work, of the UNHCR.
“We are trying to conduct awareness
campaigns in the field, and that would include Beirut,” she says.
Further down the street, Zeinab, 12,
and her brothers Yusef, 7, and Mohammad, 6, are approaching passersby for
money. “We are refugees,” they say.
The children live with relatives in Nabaa,
and arrived recently from Aleppo in Syria, but Zeinab is not exactly sure when.
“Our school is gone and our house is
gone,” she says.
The focus of fighting between rebels
and regime forces has centered on Syria’s biggest city for the past two weeks now,
with heavy shelling and casualties reported near daily.
In torn clothing, Yusef says that the Lebanese
“have been treating us well and giving us money.” His younger brother adds,
“God willing, we can go home soon, and go back to school.”http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Aug-04/183344-syrian-refugees-take-to-begging-on-hamra-street.ashx#axzz22YJb8TYo
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