Beddawi Camp, Tripoli

On October 1, 2015October 1, 2015 By norefugelebanon1 Comment

The legend that is Melad Salameh took me on a quick tour of Beddawi camp the other day. This is the other Palestinian refugee camp in North Lebanon, in a suburb of the port city of Tripoli.

Having spent the last month in Nahr al Bared, making friends and feeling at home there, I expected it to be something similar, another variety of the relaxed, peaceful and extremely friendly atmosphere you get in al Bared. I planned to go alone, walk around, take some photos, maybe meet some people. When I told Melad this, I got a funny look and then he suggested it’s not the best idea, better he takes me by car.

Nahr al Bared camp lives its entire life behind Lebanese military checkpoints, despite all the downsides that entails, there are some big pluses- a sense of security being one of them. I asked Melad once if he or other residents resent the Lebanese military and their enclosure of the camp, I was being a bit facetious and expected the answer to be an emphatic ‘yes’. He surprised me by saying, ‘not at all, they protect us’. I thought that was a remarkable statement considering that same military had only 8 years previously flattened the entire camp, not to mention they were regularly engaged in the on-going detention of young men in the camp (one evening when I first arrived the military raided homes and detained 13 young men. This happens regularly and men can be taken and detained for weeks and months without so much as a formal charge) not to mention their track record of putting down protests violently, wounding and even killing protesters. Stupid me, this is a world I know precious little about, everything here is relative and everything belongs in context.

Beddawi camp’s recent history and it’s structure is nothing like al Bared. For starters it is densely populated like I have never seen before, there are people thronging the streets and all kinds of traffic and activity happening on balconies, on the streets, in shops. People everywhere. I’ve spent the last year in one of the largest cities in the world in one of the most densely populated parts of the world (Guangzhou, China) and even there I haven’t been to such overcrowded neighbourhoods. Apparently the population is around 30,000 though it’s very difficult to know how accurate that is. Palestinians in Lebanon aren’t allowed to own land so expanding the camp is very difficult, this and the high birth rate and influx of other refugees compounds the situation. Some residents have no ID or papers whatsoever and are not registered and also there are, like Nahr al Bared, thousands of Syrian-Palestinians from Palestinian refugee camps inside Syria, who have twice been made refugees who are sheltering there. While their own camp was being destroyed in 2007 many of the then 45,000 Nahr al Bared residents fled to Beddawi for shelter. Given the cramped nature of the camp it’s difficult to imagine how at any time thousands more could be welcomed. The Palestinians seemingly have an immense level of solidarity when it comes to caring for refugees and anyone else for that matter.

Just taking photos can be unwise here. These guys seemed unhappy about it at first.... — Just taking photos can be unwise here. These guys seemed unhappy about it at first….

.. but then they realised I was with Melad, so it was ok :) — .. but then they realised I was with Melad, so it was ok 🙂

Unfortunately I couldn’t take too many photos around the camp. Beddawi is one area where there is an agreement for the Lebanese authorities not to enter so security is provided by Palestinian factions. Armed men guard the streets and are naturally weary about anyone taking photos of them. Tripoli itself is intensely sectarian and has been described as a microcosm of Lebanon’s wider sectarian conflicts. Beddawi borders a major Alawaite neighbourhood, Jabal al Mohsen and the Sunni area, Bab al-Tabbaneh.

Patrick Strickland sums up the situation well, “The Lebanese state is fighting Islamist militias, who oppose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Alawite armed groups, who support Assad in Syria, are fighting Islamist militias. Many of the Islamist militias are at odds with one another.”

And that’s without even factoring in the densely populated, quasi-autonomous Beddawi camp stuck in the middle of all this.

Almost every building you can see going through the different neighbourhoods is pock-marked with bullet-holes (that said, bullet-holes on buildings are everywhere in Lebanon, apparently these ones were from recent battles though..). Another friend had pointed out a now closed, Jabat al Nusra recruiting office when we passed the previous day. They are an Al Qaeda affiliated group, doing a lot of the fighting against the regime in Syria, among other things they also claimed responsibility for a car bomb in the city as ‘a revenge attack’ in the Alawite neighbourhood in January of this year. Alawites are broadly aligned with the Assad regime and al Nusra spear-head the former FSA, anti-regime forces (what Putin now wrongly refers to as ISIS).

just your average flock of sheep taking a dander through the city

Despite all this, friends of Melad who we met there, young people who now live in Kuwait say they love Beddawi and would rather stay than go back to Kuwait. In all it’s craziness and hardship, like Nahr al Bared they seem to have created a very tight community of family and friends. There is something special about these communities, so much of their lives is fun and lively and spontaneous. It’s normal to see 10 year olds driving cars or cutting about on scooters or to see someone riding a quad-bike down the road on two side-wheels or for someone to ride a horse through the streets. Sadly though the violence in these neighbourhoods is less spontaneous, often controlled and influenced from outside and in the case of the al-Nusra fighters in neighbouring Sunni streets, they “are just waiting for the order from Saudi Arabia to open the next battle”. And sadly, Palestinians and all the other residents remain stuck in the middle.

when we got back to Nahr al Bared we hitched a ride on a wee tractor, as you do

The Dashing White Debke

On September 30, 2015October 1, 2015 By norefugelebanonLeave a comment

My last full day at Nahr al Bared and in Akaar province was an unexpected mega treat of music, songs and dance. That seems to be the way of things in so many camps. In the morning I visited Al-Ihsan camp with a friend Bassel who arrived two months ago from Aleppo, we played a little then had an impromptu ceilidh dance with all the kids, followed by some performances by the kids themselves. Then in the evening Melad and Khalil, my Palestinian family at Nahr Al Bared heard about a dance party at the other end of the camp. Two very different parties, both fantastic.

The original idea was to go play a concert for the kids along with another guy who plays Syrian music on the Lute. Bagpipe music can be kind of esoteric, especially in a ‘concert’ setting, I love bagpipes but I wouldn’t really want to sit still and listen to them for more than a few minutes! The best thing for it was to get the kids to dance. Abu Khaled and Suliman took turns to play percussion on a biscuit tin until someone produced a tabla. The easiest and most fun dance I could think to teach them was a Strip the Willow, Orkney style. I had a moment of internal panic after I asked the boys to line up on one side and the girls on the other- I wasn’t sure if boys and girls were encouraged to mix here as in some places, like in Nahr al Bared, the sexes don’t really mix and especially not for dancing! Life is a mine-field in Lebanon when you don’t really know the culture and what is okay and not okay to do or say. Things like wearing shorts, talking to women, what particular greeting you use and so on, can be problematic and offensive, if the correct manners aren’t observed. I tend to try to be as polite as possible but often still find myself doing the ‘wrong’ thing at times. Turns out it was fine. At this camp children are encouraged to mix and to engage in whatever creative activities they fancy. It took a while for the kids to get how the dance works, many of them just looked on in amazement at the other kids spinning around. One young fella stared at me and balled his eyes out. I don’t blame him. They got the hang of it and kept dancing, every time I stopped to catch my breath they demanded another dance. Well done the dancers!

After that the kids showed off their skills- some of the boys formed a rap group, Sheikh Abdoul laying down some heavy gangster beats on the PA and the lads taking turns to rip it up. That was followed by some more traditional Syrian chanting, call and answer kind of song, where a boy would lead and the rest of the kids would answer. That was cool as well. The camp puts a strong emphasis on art, painting, singing, dancing and creating theatre, these kinds of activities are clearly absolutely crucial to the well-being of the kids and the community as a whole. Without proper structures like regular schooling or work for the adults, the camp could easily deteriorate in different ways. Artistic activities give everyone a focus, a structure, a good excuse to be together and laugh and smile and of course they are a type of therapy that will help ease the very real psychological and physical suffering everyone endures.

some of the art-work Suleman has done for the camp, he also teaxches and encourages the kids to draw and paint — some of the art-work Yaman has done for the camp, he also teaxches and encourages the kids to draw and paint

a picture by 9 yo Fatima Selo from Aleppo

Lute player and former Lawyer, Abu Khaled

As is the case everyday in Lebanon, I met some great people. Bassel is an impressive guy. He’s from Aleppo, where he had been working for the last 3 years for an organisation supporting families and individuals affected by the violence there. He speaks perfect English and is an engineer to trade. He could have left Syria a long time ago but decided to stay, in his own words, he’s attracted to lost-causes. Living under the regime for all his life and witnessing the destruction it was causing against civilians and then remaining there to help others, with the catastrophe all around, is quite something. He is now volunteering with Relief and Reconciliation for Syria, an NGO which among several other projects, helps provide social and educational support for children in camps in Northern Lebanon. They are always looking for volunteers who can spare time to teach children, if you have a few weeks or a few months then please get in touch. We all have the ability to pass on skills, whether it is teaching English, French, photography, art or whatever else- I went there with bagpipes so I’m pretty sure anyone can do it! Language education I understand is particularly important for the kids there because, though Lebanese schools are technically open to refugees, classes are often conducted in French or English so in practice they are not open to kids who cant speak these languages. As the war rumbles on from year to year children are missing out on opportunities to learn and to grow, when the time finally comes to rebuild Syria the people desperately need these kids to be educated to have any hope for the future.

Bassel and Sheikh Abdoul beside a fountain the camp had made by hand

Interestingly, R&R also offer services to other minorities, formally and informally, such as Alowites resident in Lebanon, known as ‘Haisa’, and sometimes other groups such as a local Bedouain tribe. They would usually be in Syria now, but like so many others are stuck in this part of Lebanon and have pitched tents near where the other camps are, among the farms. The NGO as I understand it was inspired by the work of Jesuit priests in the region, in particular Fathers Paolo Dall’Oglio and Frans Van Der Lugt. Both worked tirelessly for peace and reconciliation between all people, that’s why it is particularly sad that Father Frans was executed at the community centre he had established in Homs in 1980, probably by extremists of Al-Nusra front and Father Paolo after being exiled by the Assad regime was kidnapped by forces of Daesh(ISIS) and is still in detention, his fate unkown.

Local Bedouain camp, despite their condition, they don't qualify for refugee status — Local Bedouain camp, despite their condition, they don’t qualify for refugee status

Back to Nahr al Bared with my Palestinian family and out of the blue I was whisked away to a dance party at the other end of the camp (videos below). One of the guys was getting married the next day so all the men were partying in the street. It was an impressive sight and better than any nightclub, rave, festival I’ve ever been to. Everyone was there, even some old ladies took to dancing and fathers brought their kids. There were fireworks and a smattering of Kalashnikov bullets sent through the camp sky. All the men joined to do a Dabke through the streets. The songs from Abu Jandall were intense, as was all the dancing. It was a fine end to the day and my stay at this amazing camp. I’ll be back soon.

Cameron’s Refugee Camp Photo-op

On September 18, 2015October 1, 2015 By norefugelebanonLeave a comment

David Cameron visited a refugee camp in the Beka’a valley of Lebanon a few days ago. He said he was there to see ‘what they need’. No doubt he got some good photos and can now deploy some appropriate sound-bites. Ad nauseum, he’ll trot out something along the lines of “when I was at refugee camp x I met a woman called -insert made-up name here- who told me ‘-insert misleading statement which supports some element of UK policy here-‘ ).

just call me Dave, pretending to be concerned — Dave looking concerned

I visited several Informal Tent Settlement’s recently with a Palestinian friend of mine, Melad, who is hosting me at his camp. On a visit two days ago I learned about the aid they were receiving. I had it in my mind, as perhaps many of us do, that the well funded, intra-national aid agencies and branches of the UN et al were there to provide the basics, such as water, food and healthcare. I thought there would be a network of food depots and distribution points which would ensure all refugees receive the food they need. For various reasons this is not the case and the reality is much different. According to a man I was speaking to at a camp near the town of Halba in Akaar province, refugees with families to feed receive $13 per month and individuals received $6 per month. Lebanon is relatively expensive, especially in the context of this region, food prices are comparable to those in much of Europe so such a paltry amount of food aid does not go far. How can someone provide food for their family for the equivalent of less than 30p per day? To compound the situation, this month over 130,000 Syrians stopped receiving food aid from the World Food Programme http://www.wfp.org/emergencies/syria in Lebanon due to the severity of the situation and the need to allocate resources elsewhere. US and UK allies in the middle-east are also conducting a devastating war on Yemen which is also causing a humanitarian crisis, so of course, resources are severely stretched. David Cameron was informed on his camp visit by a mother of ten that she is receiving $5 a month in food aid. He claimed to be there to listen to ‘what they need’ but strangely never mentioned more cash for food. According to the Telegraph, he did however offer them ‘good luck’, which must be a relief.

On the roadsides in between the camps we have visited there are always children at the junctions selling CDs, tissues and whatever else just to try to raise some money to help their families. They should be in the schools Cameron boasts about funding. The men in the camps have also been employed on farms in the surrounding area during periods of the harvest, but sadly many have not been paid, there’s nothing they can do about it. The great international aid agencies that Mr Cameron enjoys boasting about and that most of us probably imagine have the funds to deal with this crisis, to at least feed these people, are unable.

Other major concerns, if food insecurity wasn’t enough of a problem, include medical support. I met a man at the camp from Homs who was carrying a bad back and spine injury, he had a slipped disc and the bones were deteriorating. He needed treatment, including three cortisone injections that would cost around $2,500. Of course, he can’t afford to pay for it, though without it his condition will deteriorate. I was very surprised – naive of me, yes- that such, what I (and most people?) would consider basic and vital treatment were unavailable to him. Without treatment and with a family to support he could remain dependant on meagre aid handouts for a long time. What option would you take if you were him, continual deterioration in a camp or an attempt to travel to Europe with the chance of health care and a new life?

Faraz is in need of medical care he cannot afford

Another aspect of camp life, which increases the insecurity felt by Syrians and Palestinians, is the regular assaults by the Lebanese military. They often conduct military operations in the camps in order to detain suspected militants or other such undesirables. Of course, there have been instances of militants residing in camps and attacking the military so their objectives or not entirely spurious but the reality for most is that the camps are largely populated by women, children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups so these raids by the military take a terrible psychological toll on residents. I mentioned in a previous blog-post an old man who had stayed behind after his camp had moved on. I only just learned that the reason the camp had been moved, as so many others had also, was because over the mountain in the Beka’a valley militants had been using the camps to take shelter and fire upon the Lebanese military so the blanket policy enforced was to move all camps a few kilometres away from main roads. I hadn’t realised before, but that is the main reason the camps are scattered inland around remote farmlands.

old man left behind on an abandoned ITS site by the main road

Perhaps on his next trip the PM can seek to learn and communicate about the situation facing refugees and seek to address their issues rather than grandstanding about the UK’s alleged benevolence. Meanwhile, there’s always more money for a bombing campaign in Syria, not so much money for the basic needs of refugees.

playing some bagpipes for the kids at a camp near — playing some bagpipes for the kids at the camp near Halba

‘Informal Tent Settlement’

On September 13, 2015October 1, 2015 By norefugelebanonLeave a comment

We visited an Informal Tent Settlement (ITS) a few days ago which is about 2 miles from the ‘settled’ refugee camp I’m staying in. The situation here in the surrounding area is less acute than in the Bekaa valley I’m told. There are tent settlements scattered throughout the countryside every few hundred metres or so. Each one home to several hundred Syrian refugees. My host Melad works with the children in this area and has good relationships with the men who live here. With the NGO Warchild I will be working with these children also. Melad is a third generation Palestinian refugee so it was interesting to see the solidarity shown from Syrians to Palestinians. One of the men told Melad that his children had fought and died fighting for Palestinians during the revolution. That’s solidarity. Palestinians in the region, such as my friends in Nahr al Bared have been there since 1949- 66 years! Without the potential for return to Syria then these ‘tent villages’ may start to resemble Palestinian camps over time. Palestinians themselves spent their first few decades in exile living in tents.

In Nahr al Bared itself there are between 2-3,000 Palestinian-Syrian refugees. These are Palestinian refugees, exiled from Palestine during the 1948 ‘Arab-Israeli war’ (others also fled the 1967 ‘six-day war’) who settled as refugees inside Syria but who have recently been made refugees yet again. Some fleeing Assad, others fleeing Daesh (ISIS) as in the case of the Yarmouk camp as I was informed by former Yarmouk residents in Nahr al Bared- one side is besieged by Assad and the other by Daesh. The exodus of Palestinians from Syria and the likely exclusion of them from EU asylum policy, given they are not technically full citizens of Syria, highlights the fluidity and complexity of the situation and also urges that all refugees are consulted and considered when searching for real solutions to the current crisis.

As with all refugees I have met they were immediately welcoming and happy to share what they have with outsiders. We ate a meal and then they offered Sheesha. Unfortunately I don’t know Arabic so I wasn’t privy to the entire conversation Melad had with the men from Homs. They did tell me about one child they had with them who’s parents were killed during the Assad government’s onslaught against rebel held Homs more than 3 years ago. The young child, Faraz, had travelled with his neighbours to this camp in Lebanon.

Ahmad showing me round the tent settlement

The residents had been at this camp for 3 years now and are searching for ways to move on. There is some limited schooling available to the kids here and NGOs like warchild help provide other services. Some limited opportunities for seasonal work is available for the adults in the surrounding farms, this with dubious legality and naturally, very low wages. Even with the small comfort provided by these limited opportunities, it is a cramped space on a rented field and is certainly not somewhere for any number of people to stay for a long period of time. 3 years in this place must be torture. Melad pointed out to me several other areas where there had been ITSs which had been moved. The local farmers rent plots of land via the UN and other agencies so when any contract expires the people are vulnerable to being moved on again. There was one camp by the barren coast-line where a whole settlement had been moved, yet one elderly man remained. He was living in a dilapidated makeshift tent in the middle of the field.

We are on the western slopes of the snowed capped Mt. Lebanon mountain range, the winters are cold and wet, though not as harsh as those in the Bekaa valley on the other side of the mountain range where there are many more refugees. One thing I noticed about the camp was that it consisted mainly of women, children and elderly men, presumably these are the ones not yet able to make the perilous sea crossing to Turkey or Europe. They did say that they planned on making the journey, perhaps they were waiting for the ‘right time’. I don’t know but it’s clear that 3 years and counting in this purgatory only makes the sea voyage more appealing by the day.

Nahr al Bared

On September 7, 2015October 1, 2015 By norefugelebanonLeave a comment

Staying with Palestinian refugees in a camp in Northern Lebanon, is not the kind of thing I could have guessed I would be doing at this point in life. A good friend Grazia, a PhD student at Glasgow University suggested that I come to visit Lebanon while she is here on a study and research trip and as I have been playing bagpipes at a circus in China, we thought it a good idea to work with children here at the camp doing some music and kids games.

Grazia’s close friend Melad lives at the camp and helped arrange access for us both to visit, which is generally nearly impossible to get. Nahr al Bared is a closed camp, unlike all others in Lebanon. It has existed since 1949 and despite UN resolution 194 which declares that Palestinian refugees have the right of return, the Israeli state and international ambielance prevents them from doing so.

As you can see from some of the photos, this is a ‘settled’ camp, for want of a better word. Families live when possible in brick houses as opposed to the tents we more often associate with refugee camps such as many of the ones in Lebanon providing shelter to the 1.2 million recent Syrian arrivals. That said, some of the houses are ‘temporary’ prefabricated ones as in the photos above and were built as a quick fix after the entire camp was made homeless in 2007, 8 years on their temporary housing remains.

'temporary housing' where families have been living for the past 8 years — ‘temporary housing’ where families have been living for the past 8 years

Most other housing too is ‘temporary’ in that everyone is waiting for reconstruction of their homes by UNRWA, it’s taken 8 years to complete 4 sections out of 10 at the camp. 70 years in one very small place with almost no hope of return to Palestine or escape to elsewhere means many are resigned to staying here for years to come. These kinds of camps have been growing since 1948 and without proper solutions to the current outflow of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere we can expect many, many more. Indeed this camp has also recieved some 3,000 ‘Syrian’ refugees, fellow Palestinians from Syrian beseiged Syrian camps such a Yarmouk. In Lebanese terms that’s a very small number but consider the fact that this tiny camp, offcially 1km x 1km has taken in 20% of the 15,000 total that the UK has promised to.

After the war in 2007 when the Lebanese military bombarded and entirely destroyed the camp the population here has been under strict surveillance and control, so all those who enter must seek permission to do so from the Lebanese military and pass through heavily fortified checkpoints to enter. For outsiders this is an inconvenience and usually prevents access, for residents of the camp this represents a daily humiliation and economically, it’s cripling. Before the ‘war’ (given the asymmetry of the conflict, it feels perverse to call it a ‘war’), Nahr al Bared was home to a thriving market, one of the largest in Northern Lebanon. Now the daily reality for families here is one of grinding poverty with few prospects for the future.

Lebanese law proscribes Palestinians from employment in over 20 professions (until recently this was more than 70) and as friends here tell me, the bar in itself isn’t the biggest obstacle they face for in permitted employment roles such as nursing, something Palestinians have traditionally excelled at, growing discrimination has become a huge problem. A young resident Adele, who works with the UN, told me that Palestinians are considered as ‘bacteria’ in Lebanon as she was explaining that whole hospitals had started imposing outright bans on the employment of Palestinians, so even if some professions were ‘open’, job opportunities are scarce. One of the main problems here, Melad tells me, to compound the grim realities of daily existence, is the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness, especially among the youth.

About this blog.

On September 5, 2015October 1, 2015 By norefugelebanon1 Comment

Sheikh Abdoul and the kids having a laugh

My name is Tony Collins, sometimes a professional bagpiper and other times a political activist of sorts.

I’ve been working at a circus in China for the past year and when the opportunity arose recently, I decided to travel to Lebanon with my bagpipes to meet people at Nahr al Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, 10 miles from the Syrian border. I will be starting work with the NGO War Child Holland working with children suffering the effects of war using muic and games to entertain and get to know these amazing kids.

This blog will document the many enlightening, warm and heart breaking encounters I am experiencing along the way and hopefully shine a spotlight on the stories of some of Lebanon’s most forgotten refugees.