Syrian Refugees in Lebanon amid suffering, desperation, devastation

Seeing Syrian children selling products in Beirut’s streets has become familiar.

Nirmin, a 6-year-old girl from Aleppo wonders in Beirut street selling flowers, with her under 13 years old three brothers, and her 5 years old cousin who sells tissues.

Most Syrian refugees in Lebanon, came from Aleppo, Homs, Eastern Ghouta, Yebrud and other hot areas, who lost all their savings and properties because of shelling and barrel bombs. They were left under big dilemma, either to die under shelling, or leaving everything and leave to other areas and countries, to live under humiliating and hard living condition in too expensive country like Lebanon, where a family need $1000 at least to have an average level of living, while most Syrian do not have income more than $100.

Syrian refugees in Lebanon need to find a job to afford for their living, which is very hard to find, and sometimes they are forced to sell stuff in streets, or even begging people.

it has been noticed in some areas as if a hidden agreement among work marketers to limit wages for Syrian workers to $400 at maximum, that what Ra'ed, a University graduate young man confirmed from his own experience.

Securing a job and food, are not the only suffering Syrian Refugees face in Lebanon. Finding an accommodation is an extremely difficult, and if found, it is very expensive and many cannot afford for it. Even living in a tent, need to pay for the land renting, like what happened to Abo Mohammed, who had to pay 50 thousands Lebanese pound for a land to put his tent.

Nabil, a Syrian artist and theatre director from Aleppo, who was forced to move to Lebanon after getting arrested twice said: “when I first came to Beirut, I worked in distributing brochures, for $26 a day, which increase gradually when I worked harder and for many agents” He added that his flat mate rent a taxi for $30 a day to work as a taxi driver, but most days he cannot cover the car rent, not to mention the blackmailing he faces by some authorities because he is Syrian.

Regarding the rent expenses, nabil said that one of his relative pay $150 a month out of $400 monthly wage for a bed in a hostel, moreover, she has been notified of reducing her wages or she can leave if she is not happy . While his friend first needed to pay $300 for accommodation but her friends helped her, and her salary was only $300 and had to go to work on foot despite it is too far.

On 13th Feb 2014, the UNHCR reported that Syrian refugees in Lebanon almost hit a million “927638” among them 47731 refugees still waiting for full registration. In last week alone, 12500 were registered.

The outbreak of the war in Syria, apart from the refugee issue, has direct and indirect effects on Lebanon’s economy especially falling in investment, loss of employment, disruption of trade routes and not attractive environment for tourists.

The Daily star newspaper wrote a detailed economic report about Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the effect of the crisis on Lebanon.

“The World Bank and the United Nations measure the multi-faceted economic impact of the situation on Lebanese economy, at both the short and longer-term development aspects, with a focus on the effect of the conflict on economic output” according to the newspaper and carried out: “ according to the World bank report, The main conclusions of economic and fiscal costs over the period 2012-14 were huge, even more so as they reflect the present conditions of a crisis that is still unfolding, with no visibility as to when the situation will stabilize. The conflict translates for the overall economy into $7.5 billion in foregone gross domestic product; and for the Treasury in a total cost of $5.1 billion of which: $1.1 billion in direct current budgetary outlays associated with service provision to refugees (such as medical care in public hospitals, public schooling for children, and electricity and other subsidies); $2.5 billion in incremental capital investment needed to maintain access to, and quality of, services”.

The report mentioned added that social costs of Syrian war are devastating as well, because the massive flood of refugees adds to labour supply therefore, bring level of wages down. For Lebanese citizens, this will have bad welfare implications in raising unemployment rates to nearly double their current levels, particularly among the unskilled in the poorest regions especially North and Bekaa Valley, which are already have the highest concentration of refugees as they are the closest geographically to Syria.

Syria's nearly three-year conflict began as popular protests against four decades of Assad family rule but changed into armed insurgency under a security force crackdown.

Now the major Arab state is in a full-scale civil war that has killed more than 140,000 people and forced over 6 million - more than a quarter of the population - to flee their homes.

Reporting by Balqees Abu Rashed and Yusra Ahmed, Eqtsad, fellow Business newspaper to Zaman Alwasl