Diary from Lebanon – Part 2.
The second day of October. Many of the displaced people are sleeping in the open air, beaten by the humid sea air. Others have parked their cars on the sidewalk, taking out the back seats to make room for lying down or a family breakfast. Their faces are alert. The last weeks of intense bombardment and uncertainty are written in them…
Beirut’s waterfront (Waterfront) is a large concrete curved walkway running along the Mediterranean Sea. Before the war, you could meet many runners and cyclists here, stopping here and there to stretch or practice calisthenics. When the weather was nice, my partner and I often cycled here too. The view of the mountains beyond Beirut from here was exceptional. Now, makeshift tents and shelters line these coastal paths, bags of belongings hanging from the railings…
I visited them quite early in the morning and most of the displaced people were still sleeping. Some on mattresses, others on damp blankets soaked with seawater. The less fortunate were sleeping directly on the concrete. A family with two small children was preparing breakfast over a small gas burner. Their “home base” was a blanket tied between the metal barriers that separated the trail from the running path. The youngest of the family, a child of about three, was still sleeping on a piece of cardboard. His sister, about five years old, was slicing a tomato on the ground.
The waterfront already has a reputation for being a bit of a dangerous place, especially after dark. It is separated from the main bustling center of Beirut by a kind of no-man’s land, an undeveloped rocky area with only one road leading to it. There are no buildings around it, and the area is characterised, among other things, by crime. As a result of the ongoing economic crisis, public electricity is only on for one or two hours a day and rarely at night, when displaced families are at their most vulnerable. Without electricity, street lighting does not work. There are no plugs, no charging, no light.
As I continued to the other end of the embankment, the same scenes repeated in front of my eyes. Families started the day in an open-air concrete shelter while an ocean breeze swept through the makeshift settlement. The morning was quite drizzly, and the afternoon was supposed to be rainy. Winter in Beirut tends to be cold, with night temperatures already dropping rapidly at this time. I saw a few blankets here and there, but nothing that would keep you warm for long.
At the other end of the waterfront is a road that leads to a marina full of yachts and other large boats. More and more Lebanese – those with money and visas – are starting to charter them to get to Cyprus. But with the economic crisis at its height, this is still not an option for most of the residents.
As I walk back to the waterfront road, I see another family of five getting out of a taxi. It’s hard to tell if they are coming from the southern suburbs of Beirut or from the south of the country. They are unloading blankets, clothes, and large bags of belongings. In fact, their entire possessions. Everything they have left from home. The taxi driver haggles with them over the price, and one of the youngest children cries…
I walked past the port to one of the other public spaces on Beirut’s waterfront, the Corniche. Before the war, this was one of the public centers of Beirut life. The waterfront promenade, lined with benches and decorative street lamps, was buzzing with life: elderly men playing chess, young people fishing, women sitting in the shade of palm trees, children running with balloons or racing on bicycles. Even now, children play here, but they are somehow tired, subdued, and watchful parents keep a close eye on them. There is a cacophony of car horns. Hundreds of people who now live here have begun to clog up the traffic.
As I make my way along the Corniche Road, I see an NGO setting the table for a hot meal brought in by a large truck. In a recent needs assessment done by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), they found that 82% of the displaced people do not have their food needs met. That is why People in Peril, like many other NGOs, is responding with food aid first. People are already starting to queue for food, and I overhear one of the workers looking at them and saying that they will probably need more today…
The drone that keeps hovering over Beirut is getting louder and louder, and more people are looking up, trying to find it in the sky. All of us in Beirut hear explosions at night, and many of these people have fled their homes amid the direct bombardment in the south. So, the sound of an approaching drone makes everyone nervous, understandably so. Its roar is getting louder and louder, mixing with the honking of cars and the waves of the sea. After a while, the drone turns around, fades away for a moment, and people turn their attention back to their breakfasts, their children, their tents…
This is what the new reality looks like for hundreds of thousands of people. The lucky ones stay with their families, friends or in makeshift shelters like schools and hospitals. The less fortunate, however, have nowhere to go and end up here, on the waterfront or in the Corniche, or in one of Beirut’s many other public spaces. There they have no shelter, no safety, no food, no water, no showers…
Although NGOs are trying to respond to their needs, funding is still scarce, and the needs are still growing.
This is how our colleague Allison describes current events in Lebanon.
If you are not indifferent to the fate of IDPs and would like to help them, you can do so HERE.
