Samya Kullab
This year will be another financial battle for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency to continue operations for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, with “competing pressures” in the wake of regional emergencies in Iraq, Syria and Gaza, a top agency official said.
“It’s true that this year once again we will face an uphill struggle in the face of increased needs. And to a certain extent the irony is that the areas we have the best achievements – education and health – are the areas we have the greatest difficulty closing the gap,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl said in an interview with The Daily Star during an official visit.
Krahenbuhl’s visit comes at a time when Palestinian refugees are facing increasingly dire circumstances in a region fraught with multiple conflicts. But the UNRWA official is careful not to reduce the agency’s operations in the wake of these developments to financial shortfall – which stands at around $80 million – nor the refugees it is mandated to protect to mere numbers.
“During the [July 2014] Gaza conflict, I fought to not allow Palestinians to be reduced to statistics. Yes, there were dead and injured but behind every one of those statistics – and that applies equally to the number of people in Nahr al-Bared waiting for reconstruction to the number of displaced in Syria – there is an individual destiny, and a separate history to be told.”
“I want people to understand that UNRWA is not a deficit,” Krahenbuhl said. “UNRWA is an agency which stands for something important, it stands for service delivery and it stands for respective rights for a community that has been wronged for many years.”
During his visit, Krahenbuhl toured the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, where reconstruction efforts have been delayed and mired by financial difficulties ever since Palestinians were displaced by deadly clashes in May 2007.
The fighting between the Islamist Fatah al-Islam group and the Lebanese Army left much of the camp devastated.
About half of the displaced will be able to return to their homes by 2016 with the current levels of funding, Krahenbuhl predicted. Total reconstruction costs stand at $142 million, and with a recent Saudi donation of $15 million, UNRWA has nearly 60 percent of the funding required to rebuild the camp.
“It’s clear with all of the things happening in the region – in Syria, Iraq and Gaza – undoubtedly it’s a challenge for us and for the donor community to mobilize these kinds of resources for an issue that many perceive as being, if not an old story, then something that is no longer the same emergency level,” he said.
But that is a reading of Nahr al-Bared with which Krahenbuhl disagrees. “I think it’s very important to address emergencies when they happen, but it’s very important to not let communities slide into oblivion and simply disappear.”
Nahr al-Bared is but one of many areas that UNRWA operates in the region. The agency’s workload increased considerably after the Syrian crisis spilled over into Yarmouk camp in the suburbs of Damascus late last year. Up until then, Palestinian refugees in Syria did not rely on UNRWA services a great deal, having certain freedoms under the Assad regime not enjoyed by Palestinians elsewhere in the region, including the right to work and participate in the host community.
By 2014 almost all Palestinians from Syria, thousands of whom were displaced to refugee camps inside Lebanon, had become dependent on UNRWA for financial support and social services.
An especially bloody war in Gaza in July added to pressures, and the agency is still looking to fund reconstruction efforts to restore heavily bombarded neighborhoods.
“We face a lot of ... competing pressures for donors, objectively, and we know that because we represent a community that have been refugees for 65 years, it will require a lot of energy and creativity.”
The issue of strict entry restrictions for Palestinian refugees from Syria, put in place by General Security in August 2013, was a key point raised by Krahenbuhl during discussions with top Lebanese officials, including Prime Minister Tammam Salam, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk and Speaker Nabih Berri.
Palestinians face more difficulty entering Lebanon than their Syrian counterparts, requiring a permit approved in advance by the General Directorate of General Security.
“The restrictions that have been imposed make it very difficult for Palestinians to cross the [Masnaa] border, yet, in a way, it remains the one lifeline they have,” he said. “Our principal position is that any person, and we must insist on that, including Palestinian refugees from Syria, affected, caught up or at risk should be allowed to cross an international border to seek safety.”
In meetings with donors, who also have expectations of how to best invest their funds, Krahenbuhl first underlines the agency’s achievements throughout the course of its six-decade long mandate, which include impressive education and health indicators across the region. Even the troubled camp of Ain al-Helweh in south Lebanon boasts a near 100 percent graduation rate at the level of the baccalaureate, he said.
“I think I try to emphasize these achievements so that donors can take credit for it, and don’t look at it as an annual repetition of response.”
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