• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Monday, March 20, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

Syrian Refugees in Lebanon Camp Forced to Destroy Homes

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
06/12/19
in Featured, Refugees
Eastern Ghouta, Syria

Souad, 38, from Ghouta near Damascus, sits with her daughters and husband in a disused store in which they now live, in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, on July 23, 2014. Photo: Sam Tarling, NRC

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Abu Mohamed lost his house in Syria early in the civil war. Six years on, it’s happening again — only this time in Lebanon and he has to destroy it himself.

His family and thousands of others crammed in this remote mountainous region of northeastern Lebanon have been ordered to demolish hard shelters, which the authorities consider illegal construction.

With a government ultimatum looming, the men in the sprawling Al-Nour camp this week took to the roofs of their own cinderblock homes to remove sheets of corrugated iron and start hacking away with sledgehammers.

A few dozen of these tiny shelters have already been knocked down and rubble has started to fill the narrow alleyways of the crowded camp.

Keen not to encourage Syrian refugees to settle permanently, the Lebanese government had given Arsal refugees until June 9 to demolish shelters made of other materials than timber and plastic sheeting.

“My father was shot, and my uncle, my cousin and my neighbour, and our house is destroyed.”

These are the words of an eight-year-old.

Now in Lebanon, Abdulhay has never known a Syria at peace. https://t.co/zDu7oIrQoE #SyriaConf2019

— UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) June 11, 2019

On Monday, the deadline was extended to the end of the month, but Abu Mohamed was already busy tearing down the single room he and his family called home for several years.

“We lived in this room, we were content. We told ourselves that some people dream of having a shelter like this one,” said the 37-year-old with a short coarse beard.

He and his wife and their five children have already moved into a friend’s nearby tent, together with other refugees.

“The tent is tiny, barely big enough for them. Now we’re four families in there, with a total of 16 children,” said Abu Mohamed, a red and white headscarf protecting him from the sun.


‘Chickens in a Better Home’

But going home to the central city of Homs in neighboring Syria is not an option.

“We no longer have a home in Syria. It was destroyed,” he said.

Abu Mohamed waved towards what remained of his family’s tiny cinderblock home.

In Syria, “the chickens lived in a better home than this one. At least they never got rained on in winter,” he said.

The single-room structures being destroyed were boiling in summer and rain trickled in during the colder months, their inhabitants say. But they were infinitely better than being battered by wind or completely flooded in a flimsy tent.

Lebanon, a country of some four million people, hosts between 1.5 and two million Syrians on its soil after they fled the eight-year civil war next door.

Nearly a million of these are registered as refugees with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Around 35,000 Syrian refugees are affected by the demolition order, including 15,000 people in the Arsal region, UNHCR says.

The order will affect 4,000 structures in the region, municipality head Bassel al-Hujeiri said.

“The aim of this decision is to prevent Syrians from staying permanently in Lebanon,” he told AFP. “As the municipality, we are applying the state’s decision.”

Lebanese politicians and part of the population have called for Syrian refugees to go home, blaming them for a string of economic woes in the country.

Rights groups, including Amnesty International, have warned that Lebanon is using restrictive measures such as evictions, curfews and raids to encourage repatriation.

Lebanese Activist Naji Hayek: The Syrian Refugees Will Destroy Lebanon Like the Palestinians Did; They Should Return to Syria Instead of Exploiting Us pic.twitter.com/5FK6zwlym1

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 12, 2019


‘Here’s My Stable’

In an alley of the Al-Nour camp, women carry cushions and a mattress out of a cinderblock home, loading them onto a truck already packed with travel bags, a fan, and a cooking gas canister.

After emptying the room where she and her toddler daughter used to live, 39-year-old widow Leila Abdel Qader now needs to pay a man to take a sledgehammer to it. And she is not looking forward to returning to life in a tent.

“When it rained, the water came in,” said the veiled mother, who lived under canvas for a year and a half before finally sleeping between four concrete walls.

“The neighbors could hear everything, and children would rip the tarpaulin,” Abdel Qader said, dressed in a long black robe embroidered with black beads.

Aid groups have warned the demolition order could make at least 15,000 children homeless.

“This situation also adds to the financial burden of refugees, at a time when we know most of them live in poverty,” UNHCR spokeswoman Lisa Abou Khaled said.

The U.N. agency has started providing those affected with new building material such as tarpaulin and wood, she said.

In Al-Nour, Abu Naeem sits in front of his cinderblock home, sipping tea with friends one last time before they help him tear it down.

“Here’s my stable,” said the 35-year-old, gesturing to the concrete room and provoking laughter all around.

“This is what’s bothering the Lebanese government so much?” he asked. “We’re on the border. This isn’t Beirut or a touristic area.”

General Welfare or Safety: Economic and Social Hardships of Syrian Refugees

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, on November 26, 2016
Refugees

US Announces $26M in New Aid for Rohingya

by Staff Writer
March 8, 2023
Syrian rescuers and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building, in the rebel-held northern countryside of Syria's Idlib province on the border with Turkey, early on February 6, 2023. Syrian rescuers (White Helmets) and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building
World

Quake Kills Over 1,200 Across Turkey, Syria

by Staff Writer
February 6, 2023
A Lebanese election official stands at a polling station
Opinion

New Group Threatens Lebanese Elections… and Potentially Middle East Peace

by Sara Harmouch
May 18, 2022
Bashar Assad
Middle East

Syria Frees 60 Prisoners in Presidential Amnesty: Monitor

by Staff Writer
May 3, 2022
Ukraine war
Opinion

The Ukrainian Refugee Crisis and the Hierarchies of Western Compassion

by Tazreena Sajjad
April 20, 2022
Ukraine refugees
Refugees

Nearly 3.7 Million People Flee Ukraine, UN Says

by Staff Writer
March 24, 2022
Next Post
A soldier in India's disputed Kashmir region

Amnesty Slams Detention Law in Indian Kashmir

map of Kenya

Kenyans Protest Bid to Build East Africa's First Coal Plant

Recommended

participants of an artificial intelligence conference

How AI Could Upend the World Even More Than Electricity or the Internet

March 19, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
Heavily armed police inspect the area near a Jehovah's Witness church where several people have been killed in a shooting in Hamburg, northern Germany

Eight Dead in Shooting at Jehovah’s Witness Hall in Germany

March 10, 2023
Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, on November 26, 2016

US Announces $26M in New Aid for Rohingya

March 8, 2023
A flooded road in Batu Berendam in Malaysia's southern coastal state of Malacca

At Least Four Dead, Tens of Thousands Evacuated in Malaysia Floods

March 6, 2023
An earthquake survivor reacts as rescuers look for victims and other survivors in Hatay, a Turkish province where hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the earthquake

Heed the Call of Our Broken World

March 1, 2023

Opinion

Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
An earthquake survivor reacts as rescuers look for victims and other survivors in Hatay, a Turkish province where hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the earthquake

Heed the Call of Our Broken World

March 1, 2023
Top view of the US House of Representatives

‘Cringy Awards:’ Who Is the Most Embarrassing US House Representative?

February 13, 2023
Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York

George Santos for Speaker!

January 16, 2023
Commuters waiting for buses in Metro Manila. Philippines

Eight Billion and Counting…

November 29, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post