Reports | 25 05 2020
One o’clock after midnight, most of the camp residents have lit the red light that works on one amp of electricity and stayed in their homes, because going out for any reason is an act of madness, in light of the bad conditions of the Syrian refugees in the Lebanese town "Deir El Ahmar"!
In this small town in the Lebanese province of Baalbek, the rate of persecution incidents against the Syrian refugees have risen recently, and their hard work to earn their daily bread, didn’t intercede for them.
Racist night
20 -July, four patrols of the Lebanese Detective broke into the Syrian refugee camps in Deir El-Ahmar, and arrested 98 refugees, under the pretext of that they don’t have their official papers of the "sponsorship" by a Lebanese citizen, in addition to wandering after eight in the evening, where Syrians’ curfew is prohibited during this period.
"Munzer", a Syrian refugee from Homs countryside, was one of the victims of arrest that night.
He describes the details of that incident saying: "That night, they dragged a man just went out from a surgery, carried him to the car and dropped him there violently, and head toward the nearby security branch in the city, and after investigating us with beatings and insults, it was found that ten detainees do already have their legal papers, even so, they were not released until the completion of investigations with everyone. "
He added: "When they wanted to return us to the camps, they put us in the car trunks and began increasing the car speed then suddenly stop, and every time they do that, we were turning on our butts crammed inside the car."
Syrian strike!
After the arrests and severe beatings received by the Syrian refugees, about 1000 refugees’ families there announced starting a strike (stop working in the fields), which is the sole source of income for the town of Deir El-Ahmar, and mainly rely on the Syrian labor.
The Syrians work there about nine hours a day in the tobacco fields in the region. All Syrians must work, men and women, in the style back to the feudal lords who occupy their thousands of sharecroppers with their families in exchange for only sustenance.
"Imad" -nickname- who works as a teacher in the camp, said: "The residence of the town asked us to go back to the work, we refused more than once to start working until the curfew decision is canceled", Imad explains how the mayor in the region threatened the Syrians to work under the condition or to leave the area immediately, where he addressed the refugees saying: "We will not allow the existence of unemployed refugees in our town, you must return to work or leave."
According to the information from inside the town, the Syrian male worker works for 10 Dollars a day, while the female worker works for less than this.
Imad explains that the women are working as servants in the houses for very low salaries, which means that the people there are using the Syrians’ in need to build their country, and then banning them from roaming in the town.
Syrian refugees pay $ 200 per month as a rent for the rail housing, which has been built on the outskirts of the city, in addition to electricity and water fees, and Lebanese people don’t have the right to expel Syrians because they are paying the wages of their stay.
The curfew!
"Foreign workers and the Syrian brothers are prohibited of roaming around the town of Deir El Ahmar under any circumstances". This sign was put in the city, in line with several municipalities located in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, where they made a decision to prevent Syrians from wandering at night, after a series of suicide bombings targeted regions of the Bekaa in 28 last July.
Imad says, that all Syrian refugees living in four detached camps, away from the Monastery of the town, work throughout the day, and need to buy their needs after work, "How can we finish our work at seven and be prevented of wandering at 8?" Imad wonders.
And he describes his mother state when she fell on the ground and broke her pelvis after midnight: "I begged the municipality to take my mother to the hospital, but in vain, so I called one of my Lebanese acquaintances inside the city, and he took me in his car to the hospital two hours later."
Imad added that the hospital management has left his mother moaning on the bed, and refused to treat her before getting $ 2,000, a price of the industrial basin device, the fact that the United Nations does not pay the price of these devices for Refugees, so he borrowed the sum of money from his fellow teachers, to be able to pay doctors in order to begin the process of treatment.
Ongoing violations
"Stay away from here you (ISIS) .. Go to your country, we do not want you here", this is no longer a strange sentence to be heard by any Syrian in "Deir El Ahmar."
"Rozana" received dozens of complaints about the harassment and violations suffered by the Syrians before the incident of arrests and the strike after it, the starting from preventing Syrians from performing “Tarawih” prayers last Ramadan, breaking into their homes at night by the municipality members more than once, and taking their motorcycles and phone in the street publicly, and all that is because they go out their houses and walk around after 8 PM.
Abu Azzam is a Disabled refugee, living there, said: "If we were able to go back to our country, we would not be late, life under the barrels is much easier than the humiliation in which we live here every day."
