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Image posted, AFP
Some returned to the camp to check what was left of their belongings.
Social media was full of images of a major fire that broke out Saturday night in a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon.
The Lebanese News Agency reported that several citizens of the Minya area, in the north of the country, set fire to a refugee camp after a dispute broke out between a member of his family and Syrian workers.
The fire affected all the houses built with wood and plastic materials within the camp, which includes some 75 Syrian refugee families, who are now out in the open, as reported by Agence France-Presse.
Moments of panic
The videos broadcast by the media showed the moments of terror experienced by the inhabitants of the camp after the fires surrounded their houses.
Lebanese activists in the region also recorded their testimonies of what happened, as one of them said that some refugees had to throw their children over the fence surrounding the camp for fear of the flames of the fire and the loud noises of the exploding gas bottles.
Activists and tweeters say that some refugees fled barefoot into the muddy orchards without being able to bring some essential items like baby milk and medicine.
Al-Dhahibi recounts the details of what happened: “A group of armed men surrounded the gates of the camp and cut off the electricity, plunging into total darkness before setting it on fire.
In another post, he describes: “The conditions in the tents are miserable. The mothers’ stories are sad and the elderly put down their medicines and fled.”
The camp has turned to ashes, according to photos taken by AFP journalists Sunday morning.
Photographers’ lenses documented some residents of the camp as they searched the rubble for a memory to cling to or something to protect them from the next few days.
There was nothing left in the camp, no blankets, no clothing, no food, no medicine.
One man even broke down in tears after losing an adult who had accumulated eight years of hard work, and didn’t find a penny of it, activist Muhammad al-Dehibi said.
Lebanese activists launched electronic initiatives to collect donations and basic materials to help camp residents, while residents of the region opened the doors of their homes to house affected people.
Tweeters “subjugation and racism”
Through the communication sites, tweeters from various Arab countries denounced the “humiliation and oppression” that affected the innocent residents of the camp.
Some considered that what happened did not exceed an individual incident, asking to wait for the results of the investigation.
While other activists rejected the justifications cited by some of the tweeters for the incident and considered it “collective retaliation and a racist crime that deserves the highest amount of penalties.”
They believe that what happened was the result of “the absence of the State and the furious hate speech against refugees for years, which went from individual incidents to collective operations that affected all the weak and innocent,” according to his saying.
“The problem of the Minya camp is a problem between the feudal lords and the demolished villages. Exploitation, slavery and thugs have no religion,” wrote Aswat’s Lebanese Twitter account.
Regarding singer Bilal Saeed, he commented: “This is a condemned individual act that arose as a result of individual disputes between some citizens and some displaced youth. Enough circulating and bidding on the Minya people and the displaced.”
Complicated situations
This incident is not the first to which the refugee camps in Lebanon have been subjected.
In November 2020, some 270 Syrian families left the northern city of Bcharre, fearing retaliation, after a Syrian citizen shot another Lebanese.
The number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon is estimated at around 1.5 million, some of whom are living in difficult circumstances.
Lebanon complains that it bears a heavy burden and does not receive enough international support in this case.
The economic crisis that Lebanon has been suffering for months has combined with the outbreak of the Corona pandemic and the explosion of the Beirut port, complicating the situation and exhausting the Lebanese and Syrian citizens residing in the country.
