"How long must the Palestinian people endure tragedy? How many times do we have to be displaced?" The speaker is Abu Hisham, sitting in Beddawi camp surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
This is the second time the 78-year-old has become a refugee. He had to abandon his home in Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, northern Lebanon, after fighting broke out between the Lebanese army and Fatah-al-Islam in May. Abu Hisham is one of thousands of Palestinians who have fled the violence and sought refuge in nearby Beddawi camp.
Abu Hisham’s first refugee experience was as a teenager, when he had to leave his native Nazareth in the late 1940s. "I walked all the way to Bint Jbeil (southern Lebanon) carrying my baby nephew in my arms," the old man recalls.
He remembers that Palestinian refugees were first accommodated in makeshift tents set up on the one square kilometre of the camp. "From tents, we moved to shacks and then to concrete houses, built just anywhere with no planning. Now we’ll be going back to tents."
His walk was shorter this time. Buses and Lebanese Red Cross ambulances transported the residents of Nahr al-Bared to Beddawi.
Nahr al-Bared is home to some 31,000 Palestinian refugees. It has been heavily damaged and parts of it flattened. Those who have escaped to Beddawi can expect to find little more than piles of rubble when they return. Still, they want to go home, even if “home” is a refugee camp. "Being a refugee is not easy, but we’d rather go back to the camp and live in tents on the ruins of our houses than be crammed into these shelters," Abu Hisham said.
Beddawi camp was already densely populated. Now, at least 20,000 internally displaced persons are living in schools of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), in kindergartens, in clubs and in mosques. Other refugees from Nahr al-Bared are staying in Lebanese state schools outside the camp.
Since the start of the fighting, the ICRC has been providing the refugees with food, water and medical supplies.
In Kawkab School, run by UNRWA, 938 refugees are living in 24 classrooms. Space is being used to the maximum, with corridors divided off by bed sheets to create room for more people. "Between 30 and 60 people are sharing a single classroom, depending on its size," explained headmaster Jamal Awad. Detergent and sanitary items are being provided to prevent epidemics. "We are conducting daily inspections for scabies and lice and have the medicines to deal with such problems if they occur."
Nevertheless, the IDP centres are dirty, with paper, tissues, empty plastic boxes and other rubbish littering the corridors and staircases. "The living conditions are appalling. How long can we survive like this?" complained Abu Adham, a 40-year-old father of nine. He and his family share a 50-square-metre room with 40 other refugees from Nahr al-Bared. "We’re afraid we won’t be able to return to the camp. We’d rather live outdoors without a roof over our heads than stay here," he said, expressing the fears of his partners in misfortune. His daughter Samah, 6, wants to "go home" too. “I want to go back to my school and my toys."
The plight of the Nahr al-Bared refugees is yet another humanitarian crisis caused by armed conflict and violence. As ever, it is civilians who are suffering the most. Abu Hassan, 68, head of a 16-member family, says he would rather have died under the rubble than live through the humiliation of begging for decent shelter.
"We are peaceful civilians and have no role in the war. But we are the victims," he said. With his source of livelihood destroyed and his house, the result of 50 years’ hard work, razed to the ground, he has little choice but to wait until he can return.
Even refugees have dreams. Lebanon's camps were supposed to be temporary, but they have become the refugees’ only homes over the past six decades. "You live on dreams, even if you’re living in a shack. And now even our shacks have been destroyed," says Mohammed. He spends his days listening to the news, waiting for a glimmer of hope that he may be able to return.
