Hezbollah’s steady involvement in the Syrian war is creating dire problems for refugees seeking safe haven from the daily shelling, violence and near starvation.
The Assad regime’s latest policy of refusing to allow humanitarian access to the local Red Cross and UN agencies in rebel-controlled areas are adding another layer of trauma to those perishing in the winter cold. Before Syrians avoided heavy bombardment, indiscriminate attacks and massacre but now they also face starvation.
While the UN estimates that the Syrian refugee figure as a whole has reached over 1 million, aid agencies supporting civilians to safety say that the number of those in Lebanon is 1.5 million alone. Organisations like World Vision focus on a number of areas such as supplying basic first aid kits, food, hygiene and sustenance to 500,000 families.
Fearful of repercussions
Of all of the aid agencies based in Lebanon, World Vision’s activities are tightly implemented given its vast experience in Lebanon’s tempestuous political terrain, having been in operation there since 1975 at the beginning of the country’s civil war. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians fail to register with agencies like the UN, coming as they are from rebel strongholds, wishing not to be identified, fearful of later repercussions and accusations of acting against the state. As a result, getting access to those greatest in need requires deep trust from the exiled community.
The Ammik refugee camp in the Beqaa Valley on the Syrian border. World Vision supports 130 Syrian families here, supplying them with basic materials and debit cards to purchase food. CREDIT: David Conaghy
The role of the Red Crescent, UN and World Vision is therefore invaluable. Each family is ensured that their request for assistance is not a political statement, nor will it result in any repercussions for relatives at home. Patricia Mouamar, a senior aid worker with World Vision in Lebanon, says, “We don’t ask refugees about their religious or political affiliations because we want all the help we give them to have nothing to do with politics. We want them to know we will help them and politics and religion doesn’t matter.”
Refugees that manage to flee shelling and now road blockages fear reprisals. Not only in the event that they return to Syria but in Lebanon too, given the unwavering support the country, particularly Hezbollah, provides to the Assad forces.
The Ammik ‘settlement’ camp on the Syrian border is home to around 120 families. Food assistance is offered to everyone through debit cards from World Vision, where they’re no longer expected to keep paper vouchers for particular items—a system often criticised as undignified. The land at Ammik is owned by a Lebanese farmer who duly charges his reluctant denizens high prices for the small, desolate, filthy space that they occupy. Among the smells of food cooking, shrieks of young children playing and chatter of women as wash clothes, the commitment to surviving these next few years in exile, in hell away from hell, is clear.
Upon arrival, a dark wasteland densely-populated by coloured bed-sheets awaits. Ordinary civilians can be seen vying for a moment’s privacy among human debris and makeshift sanitary zones. It’s easy for despair to set in but one or two glimpses of the human desire to survive allows hope to fade in amid the endless stories of violence, bombing and utter devaluation of human life.
Maintaining relationships
Omer 24 from Aleppo arrived in Bekaa to the Ammik camp and explains the challenges he faces in trying to maintain his relationship with his girlfriend: “I have to get married. I am obliged to do it in Lebanon and cannot wait for the war to end. Her parents told me we needed to get married or break up... We won’t have any big celebration. We’ll have some food and in the afternoon we’ll have a traditional blessing. It will be a social contract because we can’t register in Lebanon for now but we’ll have to go to Syria to do it eventually.”
The Syrian community helped them erect a small shack and makeshift bed with clean sheets for their first night of marriage. It will be dismantled after 15 days because the landlord will request extra rent to keep it. Omer will then move to his parent’s tent which homes three families already. Rent on the Ammik camp can cost up to $100 (€73) per month—an unaffordable price for people who have lost everything.
Lebanon’s explicit political and military support of the Assad regime triggers sectarian tension among the Syrian refugees—most of whom are Sunni—and the Shia communities when they arrive. Border towns like Arsal, which is situated in the Beqaa Valley—a Hezbollah stronghold—has a largely Sunni population and is surrounded by Shia towns that back the Syrian regime. Arsal is also a vital hub for the Syrian opposition, used as a conduit for weapons and people smuggling. As a result, violence, kidnapping and shootings occur almost daily and the situation in Arsal exemplifies how Lebanon is becoming ever more dramatically engulfed in Syria’s once internally armed conflict.
Image: Women and their young children at temporary housing in the town of El-Basuriya, Lebanon
The Office of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon—a volunteer operation based in Tripoli, North Lebanon which stresses its independence from the opposition forces—estimates that 1.5 million Syrian refugees have fled there. Its director, Khalid Mostafa who facilitates Syrians through Arsal, explains that the organisation relies solely on donations from foreign organisations because of the unwillingness of the Lebanese government to assist. “Syrians are left alone to survive here; the Lebanese government and Hezbollah are supporting the regime. Staying here is more humiliating for Syrians than if they remained in Syria,” explains Khalid.
As fighting between the opposition factions in Syria’s Qalamoun mountain peak intensifies, the exodus of those fleeing into Arsal has been fast—with over 10,000 civilians arriving in per week. In May 2013, Hassan Nasrallah, the President of Hezbollah confirmed what had known for over a year—that his ‘party of God’ (in Arabic) had been supporting the regime. On the Hezbollah TV station Al-Manar, Nasrallah gave a commitment to fight alongside the Assad regime to prevent Syria falling "into the hands" of Sunni jihadi radicals, the United States and Israel. A senior Hezbollah source explained that the primary reason for the Shia organisation’s involvement in Syria was also to protect Lebanon’s borders from the onset of war. Hezbollah, whose primary foreign-policy objective is to stave off Israeli and American influence in the region, denies engaging in sectarian warfare against Syria’s Sunni opposition.
Hezbollah itself is funded in no small part by Iranian geopolitical interests, yet counter-terrorism experts point to the fact that their “strategic” alliance runs deeper than a shared military and political common purpose—central to which is their shared objective to renounce Israel. The US Council of Foreign Relations refers to Hezbollah’s ideological commitment to Shia’s ‘velayat-e faqih’—a form of Islamic government espoused by the revolutionary Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran—which reflects the level of cohesion between the two sides.
Violent attacks are becoming ever more frequent in Lebanon. November’s suicide bomb at the Iranian embassy in Hezbollah’s South Beirut as well as December’s killing of former finance minister Mohamad Chatah, who vocally opposed the Syrian regime and Hezbollah’s involvement in it, is also alleged to be linked to a long time power struggle in Lebanon involving Syrian links to the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Vested interest in uprooting Hezbollah’s control
Given the current narrative in Syria, where the regime, helped by Hezbollah, is managing, albeit slightly, to hold its own against growing rebel factions—many of whom are foreign jihadists linked to Sunni terror group Al Qaeda, such as Jabhat al Nusra or the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant)—it is clear that there were many Sunni rebel groups that have a vested interest in uprooting Hezbollah’s control in the territory. On account of this, more attacks like the one on the Iranian embassy are expected.
Moving way south, in the town of EI-Basuriya, near Tyre and south of the Litani River, is the hometown of Hassan Nasrallah and facilitates much training as well as the countrywide headquarters of Hezbollah. Up until recently, war-wounded Sunnis from Syria rarely sought refuge here given the deeply partisan support from locals—the vast majority of whom are Shia and supportive of Hezbollah. But because of the ever declining alternatives due to overcrowding and other political problems that occur in the Beqaa Valley, Arsal or Tripoli, over 500 families have taken shelter and are being relatively supported by Assad’s adoring community. They too flee the continuous violent onslaught, now compounded by Assad’s apparent use of starvation as yet another odious tool of this heinous war.
Image: The countrywide headquarters of Hezbollah in El-Basuriya, Lebanon
Yasmin (not her real name) 25, her husband is 26, has two daughters, 6 and 4 years of age from Aleppo. She fled with her husband, his sister and her children, and their parents while in fear for her and her daughter’s life. She explains the extent of the threat to their safety: “Girls, sometimes not even girls, elderly women, would be kidnapped. Soldiers from the regime would put their hands on the women’s heads and say three times, Allahu Akbar ("Allah is greater" in Arabic), and the women would be taken. Once they put their hands on their heads, the women then belonged to the soldiers—we never hear about them again.”
Ayesha, (not her real name) is 6 months pregnant and has a 1-year-old boy. She became pregnant in Syria and fled the abject violence and almost certain death. She speaks about the serious danger many women face: “A woman I know, a neighbour, whose son was kidnapped, was called (by the regime) to take her son back. When she arrived, they raped her and killed her son in front of her.”
This was before the embargo of food started. “We were cut off from supplies everywhere, we risked our lives just to get out of there. Up until one week before we came, all the roads were closed. But the embargo, I’m talking about the food supplies, they wouldn’t let anything in, people are starving,” Ayesha explains. “They might open the roads for a few days but they would never allow food supplies to get in. We took dirt roads to avoid any confrontation from Jabhat Al Nusra [who were operating in the area]. They were another reason why we fled. Even the name scares us, we fled Jabhat al Nusra. We have accents that are similar to the Alwaite and it’s dangerous for us.”
Reconciliation
But there appears some attempt at reconciliation among the sectarian lines drawn. Hudar, from El-Basuriya village near Tyre, a deep Hezbollah stronghold south of the Litani River, works as a facilitator between the newly arrived Syrian refugees and the Hezbollah-led community. His role in the community reflects a more humane approach to Syrian refugees in this unsuspecting host town. The town is adorned with posters of Bashar al Assad as well as its most famous native, Hassan Nasrallah and Nabih Berri, a prominent former Shia cabinet minister and parliament speaker. While Sunni refugees are spared the daily toil of dodging bullets and staving off starvation pains, they are constantly reminded that Assad is no enemy in Lebanon, no matter how much suffering, cruelty and death he visits upon his people.
Hudar is kind yet realistic. He reminds the "guests" that they are welcome but there are rules. “Allow me to be political; this area is the hometown of Hassan Nasrallah.” Yet, he explains, “We are welcoming 530 families here and you know that there is colour to this town, it is a Shia town and all the families of the refugees are Sunni families. If anything we don’t call them refugees, we call them guests.” However, Hudar hastens to add, “It’s very public that our loyalty as Shia is to the [Syrian] regime but we are very conscious and we welcome the guests [even] though 99.9 per cent of them are against the regime. Even now, between today and tomorrow, we are getting ready to receive our martyrs from Syria. We’ve told the guests not to provoke the families of the martyrs.”
Hudar’s charity towards Lebanon’s war-weary “guests” is evident and is accessible as long as Basuriya’s unconditional support for Assad is respected and is perhaps easily offered once the regime maintains its fighting chance of survival. Asked if and when the war might end and Syria might start to rebuild itself, he replied, “Every day is becoming more positive for us in Syria, yes, it’s true that the number of refugees is increasing but in Syria,
This article originally appeared in Newstalk Magazine for iPad available now for free from the Apple app store.
