Crowded into camps amid bombings on the Lebanese-Israeli border and lacking everything, some Syrian refugees are thinking of crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe.
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After four months of war between Israel and Hamas on the Gaza front, the conflict has spread to southern Lebanon. A hidden war between Lebanese Hezbollah, support of Palestinian Hamas, and the Israeli army.
The border between the two countries is the scene of daily bombings: at least 248 people killed since October 8, including 37 civilians and 178 Hezbollah fighters, according to the daily count. L’Orient-Le Jour. But some are too poor to flee the area. Among them, Syrian refugees who have lived in the south of the country for years in very precarious conditions find themselves trapped in a new war.
This is the case of Houda and his family, who have lived for 134 days to the rhythm of strikes on the hills near a muddy camp a stone’s throw from the Lebanese-Israeli border, in the middle of makeshift tents, in the heart of of the confrontation zone. “In Syria there is war and now in Lebanon too, she laments. The situation is only getting worse. We are terrified. My daughter has become mute because she is so afraid. At night, we jump at each explosion. My husband wanted to leave but we don’t have the money to flee anywhere else.”
Lives destroyed by wars
The traumas of the war in Syria are returning. The family lacks everything: Khaled, in his forties, worked on the farms in the village next door, for a few dollars a day. Fields that have become inaccessible due to bombing. “We collect plastic and take out loans to survive, he says. But since the start of the war, no one lends us any more money. The Lebanese receive aid, boxes of food. We haven’t seen anyone for four months. No NGO comes here anymore. We need sugar, rice, bread. The United Nations has abandoned us.”
To warm the few square meters where the twelve of them sleep, the grandmother burns waste in an old wood stove. Next to her, Miled, a father of four from the Idlib province in Syria, fled his war-ravaged region. “In Syria as in Lebanon, we died. What did we do to deserve this? God has cursed the Syrian people. Our lives are destroyed. We no longer have a future.” he said.
“I’m 40 years old, it’s over for me, but I think of my children: there isn’t one who knows how to write their first name. There is no school.”
Miled, Syrian refugeeat franceinfo
“Our situation was already difficult before, but since the war started in October, life has become impossible”, he adds. Before our departure, Miled confides his intention to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe with his family. A new exile on a makeshift boat, at the risk of their lives.