Syrian refugees fleeing the violence in their country make their way to a refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq 31 July. Catholic aid workers assisting Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, said there was a large influx of people entering both co untries during the last week of July. (photo: CNS/Muhammad Hamed, Reuters)
02 Aug 2012 – by Doreen Abi Raad
BEIRUT (CNS) — Refugees from Syria are in
“complete darkness” about their future, said an official with Caritas Lebanon.
Father Simon Faddoul, president of Caritas
Lebanon, which has been working with Syrian refugees in
Lebanon for 14 months, said there was a large influx of
people during the last week of July as more than 20,000
refugees fled violence in Damascus and Homs.
“The situation we are in at the moment is terrible.
What tomorrow will bring? Unfortunately, we estimate a
worse situation,” he told CNS.
“The human plight and wound in this part of the
world is getting deeper.”
A Catholic Relief Services staff member chronicling the stories of refugees in border communities in Jordan and Lebanon found people fraught with concern for relatives and friends left behind as they were forced to flee the escalating violence with little advance notice.
“People are feeling generally broken and that they
might not ever become whole again,” Caroline Brennan,
senior communications officer for CRS, said in a
telephone interview from Beirut July 31.
“The underlying feeling among Syrian refugees is
this genuine deep despair for everything that is lost,” Brennan said. “They really were blinded by this happening to them. They did not expect this.”
The United Nations said July 31 that there were
34,096 displaced Syrians receiving protection and
assistance in Lebanon through the efforts of the
government, the U.N. and nongovernmental partners.
However, Father Faddoul said the number of refugees in
Lebanon is much higher.
“In my opinion, the unofficial numbers could be
well over 100,000,” Father Faddoul said, pointing to the roughly 300,000 Syrian workers in Lebanon who have
been bringing their families to the country as the situation in their homeland deteriorated.
Syrian refugees, Father Faddoul said, are
“extremely fearful.”
“They fear to talk or to be pictured. They are
afraid to give their names to the UNHCR,” leaving many
people unregistered, he said.
Caritas distributed food kits, food vouchers, sheets
and blankets and hygiene kits to refugees in Lebanon’s
northern city of Tripoli, and the Bekaa Valley region,
distributing nearly 13,000 items. Brennan said CRS was
working with Caritas Jordan in providing food and
distributing bedding, stoves, fans and hygiene kits in the
northern Jordanian communities of Ibid, Mafraq and
Zarqa.
“What you see in those areas are people with war
stories you don’t expect. Mothers showing bullet wounds under their dresses. Children drawing pictures in a clinic they should have no reason to draw,” Brennan said.
“It is so raw for people right now. It is not what
they expected to happen in their lifetime,” she added.
Many refugees are facing psychological trauma,
Father Faddoul said, citing the violence they experienced.
“Someone who watched a family member being
killed before their eyes ... a woman who witnessed her
husband being hanged ... bombardment for three to four
consecutive days ... the stories are endless,” he said.
The refugees face an uncertain future.