Three years ago, the eastern Bekaa village of Arsal was almost empty at noon, even if it wasn’t Ramadan. The village is located in a rather arid region at the foot of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains that separate Lebanon from Syria. Three years ago you could see thistle flying around in the narrow, deserted alleys.
Those times seem long lost. The village tripled its population since then, adding 90,000 Syrian refugees to its 35,000 inhabitants, scattered over the hills. Arsal is now more Syrian than Lebanese, and it hosts the highest concentration of improvised settlements in Lebanon.
According to Ahmad Fleeti, vice president of the Arsal municipality, there have been thousands of refugees taking shelter in Arsal at any given time since the Syrian uprising began. Now there are 90,000 people, most from the Qalamoun region right across the border, where fierce fighting between Syrian rebels and Hezbollah has been raging for the past three weeks.
“The situation is very bad. They barely have food and water. The aid is getting scarce. There were a lot of NGOs working in Arsal, but now there are only few of them,” Fleeti said. “We have too many refugees in Arsal, and no organization can help them all, not to mention count them all.”
Moreover, security-wise, the village is caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, residents and refugees, mostly Sunnis, have to face Shiite Hezbollah fighters and checkpoints in the neighboring village, Labweh. The conflict has led to a series of kidnappings and violence. On the other hand, the presence of Syrian rebel brigades using Arsal’s farms for shelter has led to many conflicts with Lebanese security forces. Recently, extremist fighters in Qalamoun have raided the town, kidnapped residents or refugees, and tortured or executed them.
Setting up an organized refugee camp with proper security would greatly improve the situation, Fleeti said. “We suggested this idea to the prime minister, the minister of interior, and the minister of social affairs,” he explained. “Arsal is a big region and can host refugee camps. It is close to the borders and its people are compassionate towards Syrian refugees and are always ready to help. Therefore, Arsal was a better suggestion for a camp location then Zahle or the south, for example. The refugees find a safe haven in Arsal. We hope that the authorities we suggested this idea to will cooperate,” he added.
But Lebanon is not ready to organize proper camps for the Syrian refugees – in Arsal or anywhere else. The government has refused to discuss the matter. International organizations avoid the topic officially. Refugees, some host communities, and NGOs, however, warn that the lack of money, humanitarian aid, and security over the influx of refugees may have traumatic consequences in Lebanon.
According to a recent census released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) earlier this month, there are over 173,000 Syrian refugees living in 1,259 improvised camps across Lebanon, double that of 2013.
Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas calls them “illegal camps,” as the Lebanese government has not agreed to the creation of the settlements. The Lebanese cabinet failed to reach a decision to organize the presence of Syrian refugees after the March 8 Alliance ministers adamantly refused to engage in any discussion over the matter.
According to the UNHCR, most of the improvised settlements are located in the northern region of Akkar and in the Bekaa Valley, and most of those in regions inhabited by Sunni populations.
Residents of improvised settlements feel they would be safer in an organized camp supervised by the Lebanese state and international organizations. It is not just a question of getting aid, a woman from one of the camps in Bar Elias in western Bekaa told NOW, it’s also a question of safety. “Some of the landlords ask for rent for the land we use for our tents,” she said. “They ask for $600 dollars a year for five to six square meters.”
She also said that camp residents are subject to harassment and that they can’t find work to provide for their families. Aid, she said, is almost nonexistent. “Many organizations come and visit the camp, they make promises, and because there is no authority to deal with them, they simply forget to come back.”
The UN agencies working with refugees have already sounded the alarm over the growing number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. By the end of the year there could be more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, accounting for almost a third of the nation’s population.
The UN has not made any statements on the necessity of setting up organized refugee camps in Lebanon, but they do pressure the Lebanese government, especially with the security situation deteriorating day by day and the lack of funding for humanitarian aid. UNHCR head António Guterres has said that "failing to provide enough humanitarian support for Syrian refugees by the end of 2014 could result in dramatic consequences for refugees and the stability of the entire region, including a serious security threat to Lebanon."
So far in 2014, donors have contributed some $1.1 billion to the Syria Regional Response Plan, but this represents only 30% of the revised requirements against the new estimate of 3.6 million Syrian refugees in the region by the end of 2014. Lebanon, in turn, has received only 23% of those funds, even though it hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees.
Lebanon has also paid the highest price for hosting so many Syrian refugees in terms of security. And while a significant number of security incidents have had to do with the lack of money for aid, security forces’ lack of organization in dealing with scattered Islamist cells taking shelter in refugee communities have contributed to terrorist attacks, an NGO worker in Akkar who requested anonymity told NOW.
“We are dealing with a large mass of desperate people. They have nowhere to go, they have no means to support themselves in Lebanon, and we’ve seen Lebanese ministers making a lot of controversial statements basically telling them that they are not wanted here,” the aid worker said. “How do you expect them not to radicalize?”
Myra Abdallah contributed reporting.
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