the trauma of Lebanese children displaced by the war

In Lebanon, all schools are closed as Israeli strikes continue. Many of them have been transformed into reception centers for hundreds of thousands of displaced people. 900 emergency centers have been opened across the country.

For ten days, 175 people, half of them children, sleep on the floor, in small classrooms in this Lebanese school in Zahle, transformed into an emergency reception center, in the Bekaa plain east of Beirut. Clothing, food… The families, who left in haste, lacked everything.

Squatting, face framed by a black hijab, Rama, 13 years old, is currently drawing. “Here is the sun, there are the clouds, she describes. I’m drawing a house with a child and I’m going to draw the airstrike. The child is crying because he lost his home. I’m so sad I left mine to come here.”.

Although Rama’s house was, in fact, spared, the young teenager remains traumatized by the bombing of neighboring homes. “During a strike, I climbed into a tree. I screamed: mom! mom! I was overwhelmed, on the verge of passing out, says the teenager. They gave me medicine with water.”

Aissa, 10 years old, comes from the town of Balbeek. “My house is still there, but 20 missiles fell in the neighborhood”he explains.

“We heard the explosions. We were scared. We came here to stop being afraid and to be safe.”

Aissa, 10 years old

at franceinfo

These children are traumatized by the din of war. “Drones, explosions, planes passing by and breaking the sound barrier, it’s traumaticillustrates Christophe Boulierac, spokesperson for Unicef ​​in Lebanon. To play, to express it and to stay with the parents, this is already the first response which will allow them not to get too bad. A few days ago, I was in one of these shelters, in another city, and a little one told me : ‘I want to have a bracelet with my name because, if there is a missile that falls on us, I want my body to be found and identified with my family.’ A child should never say that.”

Since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese authorities have reported 2 000 people killed, including 127 children. Children who are already 300 000 to have been displaced. And the number continues to increase.