Europe remains the destination of Syrians who have made it to Lebanon. The situation in the refugee camps there is precarious – high inflation is increasing poverty, and the government has started deportations.
Children romp across a small dusty square between huts, play football. It’s rare enough that they get to play, here in one of the illegal Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. It is only a few kilometers to the Syrian border.
Rubbish piles up next to the poor huts made of tarpaulins, corrugated iron and cardboard. Somehow people have tried to make a home with nothing. They have been here for years, fleeing the Syrian civil war and stranded in Lebanon. In fact, they would like to go home.
But there its “no houses and no more residents,” says a mother named Sarah of the Reuters news agency and reports on neighbors who have fled, died or gone to war. Her family cannot go back and is therefore staying in Lebanon – she has no other plan for the future.
Fled and still in distress
Around 14 million people have been displaced by the Syrian civil war. More than half of the Syrian population is displaced inside or outside the country, many in neighboring Lebanon.
Sarah peels potatoes. With the help of a small gas stove at the edge of the hut, the mother of six children tries to feed everyone. And that’s getting harder and harder: Lebanon is in the grips of a severe economic crisis, and food prices have risen by 600 percent in some cases.
The family can no longer afford anything but grain and vegetables, says Sarah’s husband Youssef, the prices for meat, fish and eggs in particular have risen too much. But at least they would get something to eat in Lebanon. In Syria, on the other hand, there is hardly anything left to buy. 90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line in their homeland.
His neighbor Saleh also states that he cannot return to Syria. There is simply no security there – “how are the children supposed to grow up there?”. His house was destroyed, there were no more bakeries in his home region and therefore no bread. “How should I live?” he asks, “should I eat earth?”.
fear of Assad
The returnees are also afraid of the Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad. As refugees, they are often viewed as traitors in Syria. Human rights organizations repeatedly report returnees who have been arrested.
Nonetheless, Lebanon is currently deporting thousands of Syrians across the border. The small country on the Mediterranean has taken in around 1.5 million Syrian refugees – more than Germany.
A family man, who does not want to give his name for fear of repression, says that the Syrians are now doing very badly, that they are being persecuted in the camps and are being forced to return to Syria.
Survive by collecting garbage
He and his children make a living from sorting garbage in Lebanon. Even the little ones rummage through the old plastic bags to get a few cents.
Like many Syrians in Lebanon, he longingly dreams of a life in Europe, in Germany. It should be nice there, says his little daughter with a sad smile – there are no corrugated iron huts in Germany.