Temperatures are dropping to around zero and freezing winds are blowing in off of both the deserts and mountains in the region. Many refugees left their homes wearing just T-shirts and flip-flops. It was summer and fighting was fierce. The tent shelters do little to block the cold.
Relief efforts are slow to arrive and money is short. Some of the refugee camps aren’t reachable because of fighting. Some aren’t in country. At least 7 members of the Red Crescent have been killed already.
Huge sums of money are needed to provide food, shelter and warmer clothing for displaced families, many of them children. The United States has given $8.5 million and Great Britain has contributed $7.8 million. With the exception of Kuwait who has contributed $1 million, the surrounding Arab countries have not contributed to the aid of these people at all.
According to the New York Times:
Since only about 35 percent of the $70 million budgeted for winterization has been funded, only the most vulnerable third of the population will get help, Mr. Moumtzis said. Or as one senior diplomat put it, the refugees will be fed, “but not generously,” and they will be clothed, but “they will be cold.”
Efforts at triage are readily evident. In the Bekaa Valley, 10 to 15 families arrive daily, United Nations officials said, and 75 percent are women and children.
Near Syria, families are huddled in windowless foundations, often ten to a room. Schools are too packed to absorb the children.
In Lebanon, tent cities are forbidden:
In Lebanon, which has banned tent camps, most refugees have been housed in private homes, and are scattered among some 500 towns, said Ninette Kelley, the United Nations refugee representative in Lebanon.
The official explanation for the ban was that it wanted to avoid repeating the experience of Palestinian refugees in 1948; 12 camps built for them have become permanent cities, filled with up to 250,000 stateless people.
But the other key reason was that Syria’s allies in the Lebanese government wanted to avoid such visible symbols of the violence that Syria was raining on its own people. “The government called them guests, as if they were here to enjoy the parks and nightclubs,” said Khaled Daher, a Parliament member opposed to Syria.
How do you pretend all violence isn’t going on in the world around you? What keeps the Lebanese from screaming STOP THIS! ? On the first day of violence and fighting in Damascus, the Syrian capital, 18,000 refugees poured across the Lebanese border. Hopefully local efforts are the reason why the countries in the area aren’t sending international aid….they are providing it locally. Of course, I doubt that is happening with Saudi Arabia. So far, none of the surrounding countries have closed their borders but many are wondering how much longer can they continue to accept displaced persons. Most regions are at their breaking point.
Are churches in the USA collecting blankets and money to aid the refugees? How about the International Red Cross? We can wring our hands but what good does it to the people of Syria? Who knows how to donate? Let’s talk about it. Our friend George would warn us about scam artists and he is right.
Further reading Crisis from Syria.
really awful!
, the surrounding Arab countries have not contributed to the aid of these people at all.
This does not surprise me.
Lebanon won’t stop this because Lebanon is divided between Hezbollah which supports Assad and everyone else.
They don’t want the tent camps for the new refugees but keep the Palestinians “stateless” because the new refugees cannot be used against Israel.
Saudi Arabia sends its radical jihadists to fight in other countries so they don’t topple the kingdom. They want the fighting to continue because Assad is also allied with Iran.
The whole situation is horrible. Moreso, because if, and when, the “rebels” win, conditions will not improve and there will be a fundamentalist dictatorship in Syria again.
And there’s nothing that we can really do about it except to donate and try to help the innocent.