Caritas Lebanon: influx of desperate Syrian refugees
Beirut (AsiaNews) - "The situation in the refugee
camps on the border with Syria,
is terrible and getting worse day by day. Thousands of refugees are crossing
the border trying to escape from the Syrian hell. Most are women and children.
The suffering of
these people is enormous, wherever you go you hear cries of despair, hatred,
revenge, many feel abandoned by God. " This is what Fr. Simon Faddoul, President
of Caritas Lebanon
tells AsiaNews. The
priest speaks of more than 47 thousand refugees who have sought shelter in the Bekaa Valley
and in makeshift camps on the northern border between Syria and Lebanon. They
come mostly from the Sunni-majority provinces of Homs
and Hama, the
most affected by the war between the regime and rebels. For
several weeks many of the Muslims who have fled are Alawites along with small
groups of Christians from Damascus and Aleppo. Today, over 8
thousand people have crossed the border.
According to Fr. Faddoul
most of the refugees are Sunni Muslims. Only 5% are Christian.
"Our
volunteers are always on alert - he says - because these people need
everything: clothes, water, food, medicine, blankets. For political reasons the
government does not authorize the construction of refugee camps, forcing people
to find shelter in old
abandoned houses, shacks, makeshift tents. " To
help the Syrian refugees, Caritas and other NGOs have set up several collection
centers across the Bekaa valley and a mobile clinic dedicated to the care of
the wounded.
The
priest said that hundreds of foreign volunteers came to Lebanon to
support the local Caritas, but without the refugee camps it is impossible to
organize aid. "Anyone
who crosses the border goes to our centers and plants their tents there. In
these days we have asked the government permission to increase our space for at
least the distribution of aid, to prevent overcrowding and the outbreak of
epidemics."
Fr. Faddoul
invites Western countries not to forget the Syrian people and to press for an
immediate cease-fire. "The
situation is irreversible. Many fear an escalation which will be almost
impossible to escape. We must try to be ready for any eventuality because we do
not know what will happen in the future." (SC)
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