[Arne]

FEAR IN LEBANON

"I Try to Be Happy in Front of my Kids"

By Ulrike Putz in Beirut, Lebanon

As many as 120,000 Lebanese refugees are stranded in Beirut after fleeing the conflict in the south of the country. Many have made camp in schools, parks and underground parking lots -- aided by the generosity and solidarity of neighbors.


Beirut's Sanayeh park used to be a lovely place where a person could spend a carefree day in the outdoors. But that peace is nowhere to be found today. The garden's flowerbeds and roses were an early victim of the current conflict, which has now been going on for a week. Hundreds of people have taken refuge on a tiny patch of grass the size of a housing block: many have already been here for seven days. In a park where couples used to stroll hand in hand, people whose lives have been thrown into chaos sit waiting for help. People who have no choice but to turn the dark corner of the park into a public toilet. They sleep out on mattresses and pieces of foam under the stars and are forced to sit and wait in the shade, staring straight ahead, not knowing what is to come.

Until one week ago Zahar Zayoun was a fisherman. Last Thursday, as usual, he left his flat in southern Beirut to go fishing, when suddenly rockets started to rain from the sky. "They came from both sides. Hezbollah tried to hit Israeli warships from the land, the Israelis fired back." In the ensuing panic, he hurried home to find his terrified wife Samira and his five-year-old child. "We traveled north through the night by foot, until eventually a taxi picked us up." They brought themselves to Sanayeh, a relatively safe part of town, in west Beirut. Since then, Zahar and his family have been living in the park.

Since Israel began its bombing attacks on southern Lebanon and Beirut, the Lebanese government estimates 120,000 people have been displaced. They are mainly people of simple means, who are trying to leave the country, but lack a passport or money. "Half of the internally displaced persons have found accommodation with relatives or friends," Lebanese Finance Minister Jihad Azour said Tuesday. Around 40,000 people have sought refuge in schools. If you travel through Beirut at the moment, the remaining refugees are easy to spot: in parks, bus stations, underground garages and ruined buildings.


Students come to the aid of refugees

The Zayoun family's decision to camp in Sanayeh park was a good one. Time and time again expensive cars pull up at the entrance to the park with the trunk piled high with donations of food and other essentials. Women from the local community sometimes bring hot food, because after a week in the camp, children desperately want something more nourishing than a sandwich. A group of students from the area founded a "Civil Committee for Refugee Aid" four days ago. Newly appointed press spokesman Sargoum appeared on TV almost immediately to appeal for donations: the coffers have been filling up quickly.

With the first donations the students set up two drinking water tanks under a eucalyptus tree. Three to four hundred people currently live in the park, Sargoum estimates. "We thought about it for a couple of days and then got going. You always dream about doing something good. Now the opportunity has arrived."

The Lebanese are a people who are more at odds with each other than most. With more than a dozen religions, stark class divisions and political opinion ranging from the far right to extreme left, the country has already experienced a devastating civil war. But at the moment there is considerable solidarity. neighbors, sports clubs, employees and political parties are all helping out where they can -- though the latter are more than aware of the potential electoral power of the displaced people and consequently the parties display political flags in the camps.

The government, which appeared weak and directionless when the conflict began, is finally finding its feet but civil society got its act together long ago. The state of emergency binds people together, although by no means all Lebanese lay the blame on those south of the border in Israel. Many, mainly Christian Lebanese, would be happy, if Hezbollah disappeared completely. That's the paradox in this crisis: For a people under siege, the opinions you hear on the street and in the camps, are remarkably diverse. Many curse Hezbollah and affirm Israel's right to self-defense and to fight back -- "but against the Shiite militias, not against the Lebanese people."


"The little ones still believe it's a big game"

In the classrooms of a high school in the Christian area of Ashrafieh, the benches and desks have been pushed together, chalk hangs from the blackboard to dry, as children play on the floor. Twelve people have to share a room, whether they're related or not.

Fatma Hatir is sitting in classroom 5. She fled here with her 18-month-old son and, despite being surrounded by a throng of people, she feels "completely lost." She lives with her husband in Kuwait, but went to visit her family in the south Lebanese town of Saida, when the first rockets fell. Her parents didn't want to leave, so she fled on her own, and now finds herself here, desperate to return to the security of Kuwait. But she doesn't know how to get home: she hasn't got the money for the flight. She plans to move on, the high school camp is untenable, "For the first time today, after four days, I received baby food. Previously I had to feed my child herb cheese -- he had terrible diarrhea," she says.

One classroom down the hall, the Azzedine family has set up camp on two straw mats. Last Saturday the southern Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik came under attack. The family of six fled in their pyjamas, shortly before their apartment block collapsed. Since then the family's father, Azzedine Azzedine, hasn't heard from his brother, who lived with his three children in the flat next door. "I hope he's in another refugee center. We are simple people, we don't have mobile phones that we could use to find each other." The painter is worried because he's unable to work. "I have six mouths to feed, and soon I'll run out of money." For tens of thousands, that's the painful difference between this evacuation and the refugees who fled the civil war in 1975. Back then the economy was booming and many had money saved up that they could draw on for months afterwards. Today, they struggle to make ends meet and were woefully unprepared for the attacks.

Money is also the thing which worries Zahar Zayoun in Sanayeh park. Again and again he insists he isn't a poor man, he has a respectable house, to which he extends an invitation to tea when the war is over. The closest he has come to providing a home for his children during the past seven days has been a single foam mattress under the shade of a pine tree. But he still attempts to keep his dignity.

"In front of my kids I try to be happy, even when it's difficult," says Zahar Zayoun. "The little ones still believe it's a big game. A holiday camp in a park, with a playground with lots of other children."