On the Syrian refugee crisis frontline

Arriving In Beirut

The first thing you notice about Beirut is the noise; the waspish buzz of thousands of motorbikes, the calls to prayer from the minarets which pepper the skyline and the banging and drilling of construction. The city is still furiously rebuilding following the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, a nasty 34-day spat that resulted in the deaths of 165 Israelis and 1,191 Lebanese and caused severe damage to the latter's infrastructure. Water tanks are still a common sight, and the stench of sewage in some of the poorer parts of town is overpowering.
The government's failure to provide proper public services has given birth to the wonderfully named YouStink, a multi-denominational Lebanese take on the Anti-Water Tax movement who headed to Prime Minister Tammam Salam's house at 4am the other morning to let him know that they're not happy about the uncollected rubbish on the streets. Paul Murphy would definitely approve.
We're spending our first night on Nehme Yafet, the Beirut equivalent of Dublin's Dame Street with the American University down the end of the road and a shopping drag a few minutes away that has all the usual multinational suspects plus some truly spectacular schwarma 'n' falafel joints. Eight kilometres to the south though is al-Barajneh, an area of south Beirut associated with the Hezbollah Islamist militant group where 49 people were killed and 239 left injured on November 12 by suicide bombers linked to ISIS. The rationale of the Sunni ISIS being that if the Shia Hezbollah have security matters to take care of at home they might recall some of the estimated 6,000 fighters they have in Syria. Sadly, the old soubriquet of Beirut being the 'Paris of the Middle East' has taken on a whole new dimension.
The international city that it is there's lots of English and French language media with the Daily Star's front-cover proclaiming: 'US Special Forces Travelling Very Soon To Syria', and L'Orient Le Jour deeply concerned about the impact Turkey shooting down a Russian fighter jet will have on the region.
While having a breakfast falafel - there's a theme developing! - I get a surprise hearing an old pirate radio buddy I was in Israel with 30-years ago, Gavin Forde, presenting the Radio One Lebanon breakfast show. The big tunes among the city's hip young things at the moment are Justin Bieber's 'Sorry', Fleur East's 'Sax' and Anastasia's 'Take This Chance'.
One suspects that things will be a little less Anastasia-tastic tomorrow when we drive up the coast to Halba, a mixed, majority Muslim area where Concern have their Lebanese base. It's the principle town in Akkar province where 110,000 people are in need of emergency winter supplies. From now until late February, the mountainous region will be blanketed in snow with temperatures dropping to minus five at night. Because they've received only half of the funding required from donor governments, the World Food Programme has slashed the value of the vouchers they give to refugees from $28 to $14 a month per person. With refugees not allowed to legally work and the rents on even modest dwellings around $240 a month, you can see why the vast majority of them are living below the poverty line. Many of those who are relying on Concern are from Homs, the bombed-out Syrian city that lies just 10kms over the border. Eerily reminiscent of Warsaw at the end of World War II, its outskirts can be seen from the hills above Halba.

Meeting Refugees On The Border

It's very strange gazing across 4kms of scrubland knowing that on the other side the most uncivil of wars is raging.
We've arrived in Halba where the 90-strong Concern team took up residence in May 2013. Shortly before hitting town we got a roadside view of the Baddawi Camp, which was supposed to be just a temporary home for the 100,000 Palestinians living there when it was set up in 1955. To get in you have to go through one of the four gated, bombproof entrances manned by the Lebanese Armed Forces who, in 2007, intervened as rival armed Palestinian factions wrestled for control of the camp, which, from the outside, resembles a giant prison. Given that its residents, many of whom were born here, don't have citizenship or voting rights and are barred from working in over 20 professions, you could argue that is precisely what it is.
Briefing at Concern HQ completed, we travel the short distance to Burj Al Arab where 16 families, all of them related, live in what is officially known as an 'informal tented settlement'. With the Lebanese government refusing to sanction formal refugee camps, there are hundreds of these ramshackle enclaves dotted around Akkar.
The head of the clan, Ahmed, tells us how they left the western Syrian town of Al-Qusayr in 2012 following five months of government bombing from "the ground, the air, everywhere!" The decision to hike the 17 hours to the Lebanese border was taken after Ahmed's 23-year-old grandson was killed during a heavy artillery attack.
Ahmed had the chance last year to move legally to Sweden, but passed up on the offer because he wanted to remain as close as possible to his former home. "We want to stay here and bring up our children," he stresses when asked through an interpreter whether he'd ever consider moving his family to Europe. "We are not terrorists. Love and peace, that's what we believe in."
The former businessman and his extended family pay a monthly rent of $80 per tent to the man who owns the land they're on. He says they're treated well by their immediate neighbours, but are reluctant to stray too far from makeshift home because of the verbal abuse they suffer when they do so.
Occasionally they'll earn $10 a shift doing casual - and illegal - agricultural work, but without Concern's assistance wouldn't be able to survive financially. The aid agency has provided them with water and septic tanks, toilets, showers, gravelled pathways and a generator for when the mains power fails, and are helping them press for the small school support tent that was promised but has yet to materialise. They'll get a $180 Concern winter fuel voucher, but they're not sure if that will tide them through to February when night-time temperatures creep back above freezing. Will they ever be able to return to Syria? "Only God knows that," Ahmed proffers as we leave.
The onset of winter is also troubling Tarek, the 'Shawish' leader of the 215 people living in Arka 5, an altogether more basic tented village thatÕs sprung up in a fly-infested scrapyard whose owner is charging them $30 a month per tent to live among the rubbish. A brother and sister, aged three and five, are playing with the splintered metal remains of a microwave.
"We don't have enough heaters or clothes for the children," rues the 41-year-old, who had to walk for three days with his family in order to cross the border into the Lebanon in 2012. Several of his close relatives were killed before being able to make the same journey. A disabled friend of his on crutches informs us that he's made three failed attempts to join his brother who, after entering the country illegally, has been granted refugee status in Germany.
"I'll try one final time, but if they don't give me permission to go I'll take a boat," he says angrily. "It's very, very dangerous but better than staying here."
Tarek has no interest in taking his family to Europe, telling us that, "All we want to do is go home." He's grateful to Concern for providing them with clean water, toilets and other essentials, but reflects that: "This isn't life, it's existence."
Not for the last time on this trip, my heart breaks.

Breaking Down Sectarian Divides In Tripoli
Checkpoint selfies are not an option as we arrive in Tripoli, the north Lebanese city where November 12's Beirut suicide bombings were plotted. The army, who discovered a further 40 suicide belts during raids on local addresses, believes a sustained, ISIS-initiated terror campaign was planned.
We're here to be briefed by Basmeh & Zeitooneh, AKA Relief & Development, a non-governmental organisation based in Al Shiraa Square, which is the buffer zone between the pro-Assad factions living in the Jabal and Mohsen districts and the neighbouring Qoubbe and Bab al-Tabani ones who want to see the Syrian President deposed.
It's too dangerous to survey our surroundings from street level, but safely ensconced at a third-floor window you can see the bullet holes pock marking all the buildings. While the rest of Tripoli is teeming with people going about their mid-morning business, Al Shiraa Square is deserted.
With the number of tit-for-tat shootings there escalating, the Lebanese Armed Forces in April 2014 effectively locked down the area by placing tanks and heavily fortified checkpoints on all the approach roads. A hack trying to take a sneaky photo of either of the aforementioned is likely to find themselves arrested and deported in double-quick time. The checkpoint nearest to the square comprises of six massive reinforced concrete blocks, which have to be zig zagged through, while military eyes watch from behind a perspex shield. "It's in case of suicide car bombs," our driver tells us.
Concern are partnering with Basmeh & Zeitooneh to fund a free, month-long embroidery course for Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian women who in the normal sectarian run of things wouldn't get to meet. Friendships blossom, house visits are exchanged and their respective husbands and families brought together. Well, that's the plan.
"The initiative is only four months old, but already we've seen some of the women socialising outside of the centre," enthuses Basmeh & Zeitooneh Operations Manager for North Lebanon, Omar Assaf. "They spend an hour a day here acquiring their advanced embroidery skills, and can then make up to $300 or $400 a month which, by Lebanese standards, is a lot of money, working from home. Priority is given to those who are most socially and economically vulnerable, such as widows and women from households where there is no existing income. We've just opened a nursery downstairs, so they can bring their young children with them."
Concern CEO Dominic MacSorley, who'd just arrived in Beirut when the al-Barajneh suicide bombs went off, speaks of meeting a young Syrian girl living in a UN camp.
"She always wanted to be a teacher," he rues. "That's all changed and now she will get married at 16 so as to support her mother. It's called 'survival sex'. We need to be making changes that will allow that girl be the teacher she once wanted to be."
Asked about this, Omar nods sadly and says, "It's not talked about much but, yes, ocassionally it happens. Some get married, others are paid for sex by men. You can't blame them. They have no other way of providing for their families."
Hodah, who fled Homs in 2013, tells us that, "Coming here has given my life new purpose. I've made friends and am learning skills that will help me to look after my family properly."
Recounting the events that led to her, her husband and nine of her ten children fleeing Syria, she continues: "There was a lot of government bombing from the air. We left without taking anything from our house, which was above the mini-market we owned. A woman on our street was killed. We went to different places inside Syria before we came here. Rents and other living costs are far higher in Tripoli than they were at home. One of my children is still in Syria and two are living elsewhere in Tripoli. There are nine of us in our house, but only five are getting the $14 a month World Food Programme vouchers. It is very difficult to survive."
Hodah shakes her head when I ask if they'd consider starting a new life in Europe or America. "We're living in the hope that the regime will fall down and we can go back home," she proffers. "We won't set foot on Syrian soil again, though, until Bashar al-Assad has been removed."
With a lot of the Syrian women suffering from war trauma, and their Tripoli-born counterparts finding it difficult to live under what amounts to martial law, Omar and his team also offer them psychosocial counselling.
In addition to his Basmeh & Zeitooneh work, Omar has launched a project to address the fact that only 1% - no, that's not a typo - of students from Qoubbe and Bab al-Tabani pass their high school exams and, therefore, have the chance to escape the extreme poverty they've grown up in by going to university.
Warm and welcoming, but clearly scarred by their experiences, the embroidery course women hope that attending the centre will improve their prospects too.

Hearing MayzarÕs Story

Memo to self: sort out sock draw when back in Dublin.
I've just done the polite thing of removing my shoes before entering the Tripoli apartment where a Syrian refugee mens' meeting is taking place and, well, I've made a holey show of myself. Not only are both of my big toes peeping out, but the socks supposed to contain them are different colours. Thankfully the guys think it's a hoot.
Conducted by a Concern staffer, it's a weekly chance for the 20-strong group, most of whom are from Homs, to hone their communication skills and address any anger issues arising from their limbo-land refugee status.
Them and their families are living in two damp-riddled and vermin-infested tower blocks that would have been condemned and pulled down if they were in Ireland.
A friendly gentleman called Mayzar, who was an olive farmer back home, hands me a cup of industrial-grade Arab coffee and does his best to translate what's going on.
"I came here today for some peace and quiet," he laughs, referring to the seven girls and four boys who are back in the three rooms he's paying $400 a month for. Before fleeing Homs they were renting a whole house for under a hundred bucks, and it didn't have rats eating from the bins. Knowing how desperate Mayzar and his friends are for accommodation, landlords have been thinking of a number and doubling it.
There's lots of animated talking, clapping, laughing and role-playing during the hour-long session which Mayzar says is, "One of the things that keeps me going. I'm very proud and to live like this..." His voice trails off as he tries to find the right words. "...makes me feel like less of a man. I'm grateful to Concern and the people in Ireland for caring about us."
Asked where he'd like to be, he immediately answers: "Only Syria. Hopefully God will allow us to go back when that bad man, Assad, has gone."
Life in Homs, Mayzar reflects, used to be pretty good.
"Sunnis, Shias, Christians...we all got on," he smiles ruefully. "Assad, who became president in 2000, was okay at first, but then it became more and more difficult to get a good job if you weren't a supporter of his. The best schools and universities were reserved for his people. He talked down to us: 'You are not as good as me.' He created divisions in Syria that weren't there before. Neighbours turned against each other. Friends became enemies. It was very sad."
Wanting to remain in his own country, Mayzar moved his family four times within Syria before the situation got so bad that he had no option but to cross the border.
"We arrived here with nothing and had to promise not to try and find work when we registered with the Lebanese authorities. We're lucky, though, compared to the people who've arrived here since January when registration was suspended and are frightened they'll be sent back if they're stopped at a checkpoint. There are hundreds of thousands that don't have papers."
Roughly the size of Munster and with a regular population of 4.4m, Lebanon has actually been very generous in its accommodating of the 1.1 million refugees who've officially made it over the porous border.
Unable to travel outside the Lebanon without forfeiting the limited residency rights he has there, Mayzar has no idea if or when he'll get to see his two brothers, who escaped to Turkey, again. Another brother and his mother, who visited him in Tripoli earlier this year, are living legally in Dallas but, "There is no way the American authorities will let me and my family join them. We are prisoners here."
He doesn't know who U2 are, but beams when I explain to him that the biggest band in the world have a five-minute video showing the devastation wrought on Homs in their current show.
"That makes my heart feel good," he says. "For our stories to be known is very important. Please say to people in Ireland, 'Happy Christmas and good health!"
Message relayed, Mayzar!

Back In Halba

Empty buildings are a rare commodity in Akkar province with refugees renting garages, outhouses and derelict buildings as makeshift homes. Six hundred and fifty families in such dwellings have had their living conditions improved by Concern who then negotiate with landlords to waive or reduce rents for an agreed period of time in return for the work that's been carried out on their properties.
The installing of windows, doors, toilets, washing facilities, septic tanks and pathways is carried out by local contractors, so there's a benefit to the local host community as well. A new water tower built by Concern in Tal Abbas has safeguarded supplies for over 5,000 people, Lebanese and Syrian alike. It's the modern, sensitive way of delivering aid to refugee-hosting countries that have infrastructure problems of their own.
Our final port of call before heading back to Beirut is Mohamra, a small and relatively comfortable cluster of ten tents where Concern have provided the wood, tarpaulins, concrete and tool-kits needed to 'winterise' the settlement.
Five families are read the translated messages of solidarity that have been sent to them by Concern supporters. Amena, who's clutching her young son, says: "It's nice to know that we're being thought of in Ireland."
We're not allowed to depart Mohamra until the luxuriantly moustached Sayid has introduced us to his family, and treats us to cups of sweet Syrian tea.
None of us have any way of knowing that in two weeks' time Britain will start bombing targets on the other side of the border, which can be clearly seen from where we're sipping our chai. Even if those Brimstone missiles are as pinpoint accurate as they're supposed to be, there will be civilian casualties and a fresh wave of people desperate to leave Syria. With the UK, US, France, Turkey, Russia, Hezbollah, ISIS and pro and anti-Assad factions all looking to affect its outcome, you wouldn't bet on the civil war ending anytime soon.
Concern believe that only a negotiated political solution will end the crisis, which they're this year spending €12.1 million on. Contrary to what the media in Europe would have you believe, the real refugee crisis is happening in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, where close to three million Syrians are now residing.
If the hand-to-mouth existences they're leading in neighbouring countries don't improve, the refugees I met who are desperate to stay close to home may just consider heading to Europe. In the meantime, those standing orders and one-off donations from kind souls to Concern are making a profound difference to Syrian refugees' lives.

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See concern.net for details of the Syrian winter emergency refugee appeal