Nine-year-old Iman holds her little sister Aya, who has spina bifida, in
a game of hopscotch. Iman carried Aya during the family’s two-month journey
from Syria to Lebanon. Photograph: Giles Duley
As millions
flee the conflict in Syria, the region’s humanitarian crisis grows by the day.
Acclaimed war photographer Giles Duley travelled to Lebanon where he heard some
of the Syrian refugees’ moving stories
Giles
Duley
The
Observer, Sunday 5 October 2014
Sometimes
the photographs you don’t take are as important as those you take. I’ve just
been introduced to Aya, who sits in front of me on a concrete floor, small and
lost, and although I’m here to photograph her it feels like the wrong thing to
do. As far as possible in my work I try and see the people beyond their
injuries, illness or situation; to respect them as the individuals they are.
This time, I’m struggling to do that: Aya is four years old, has spina bifida
and is homeless.
I came to
Lebanon with the charity Handicap International (HI) to document the lives of
some of Syria’s most vulnerable refugees; most especially people with
disabilities, many of whom are going without essential needs. It has been a
difficult and harrowing trip; I’ve met many refugees throughout my career, but
here I am hearing some of the worst stories I can remember.
The
statistics of the Syrian refugee crisis are hard to comprehend. More than 3
million Syrians have now fled the country, with Lebanon alone taking in nearly
1.5 million. In this small country of just 4 million, that equates to the
population growing by more than 25% in just a few years. And that number is
increasing daily.
In Lebanon
refugees are faced with unique problems. The government is yet to allow the UN
refugee agency (UNHCR) to build an official refuge camp. As a result, those
fleeing to the country are forced to rent whatever space they can, from
substandard flats to garages and even cowsheds. That’s if they can afford to
pay rent; many are left to build their own shelter on whatever ground they can
find. There are now more than 1,600 informal tented settlements (ITS) across
the country, making the distribution of support a logistical nightmare.
Khalida
was shot by a sniper, leaving her paralysed from the neck down. She now lives
with her four children and husband (pictured), who provides her care, in a
makeshift tent in the Bekaa Valley. Photograph: Giles Duley
Khalida
lives in a makeshift tent in an ITS in the Bekaa Valley, just a few miles from
the Syrian border. The tents here are made from whatever materials the refugees
can find: tarpaulin, cardboard, even posters advertising Hollywood blockbusters
ripped down from billboards. Inside the air is stale, the heat oppressive.
Khalida lies on her bed, her husband sits next to her, holding her hand. She
was hit by a sniper’s bullet in the back, leaving her paralysed from the neck
down.
“I had
tried to plant a small area of land near our house as it wasn’t possible to get
vegetables like before,” she explains. “I was going to take care of the plants
with my four children and suddenly a bullet hit my neck and I fell down and lost
sensation. I could not move any more. The children started shouting and
yelling.”
The
doctors gave her a 1% chance of survival, but she made it. As soon as they
could, she and her family left Syria because the country’s hospitals,
overwhelmed with war-wounded and lacking supplies, could offer her neither
medication nor physiotherapy. They’ve been living in this tent for five months.
The UNHCR
provides food coupons, but the family is struggling. Khalida’s husband now has
to provide 24-hour care for his wife. As we talk, he gently strokes her hand. I
ask her what hopes she has for the future, she replies simply: to be a mother
again.
“I need a
miracle to happen,” she says. “I wish I could move my fingers because sometimes
my son hurts himself outside and he comes in next to me. He moves my hand and
he puts my fingers on the wound. I wish I could move my fingers to touch the
wound and make him feel like I am feeling it with him.”
Reem
lost a leg when her house was bombed, killing her husband and daughter. Now she lives on the roof of a half-built house in Bekaa. Until she learns to use her
prosthesis, she is trapped at the top of the stairs. Photograph: Giles Duley
Nearby
lives a 38-year-old woman called Reem. She fled here from the Syrian city of
Idlib two years ago when her house was bombed. Her husband and daughter were
killed and Reem lost her leg. Initially she was overcome by what had happened;
her hair fell out, she suffered from anxiety and depression. Her other three
children went to live somewhere else; she didn’t want them to see her. In the
end, though, it was the thought of her children that gave her the focus to pull
through. One day she said to her Handicap International physiotherapist, Abeer,
“I want a prosthesis fast because I want to see my kids. I don’t want them to
see my amputation. I don’t want them to think that I can’t help them or do
things well in front of them.”
HI was
able to provide a prosthetic leg and from that moment, Abeer tells me, she was
determined to be reunited with her children, who now surround her.
Reem’s
story is hard to hear but I am also disturbed by the location of her new home:
she and her family are living in a tent on the rooftop of an unfinished
three-storey building. I struggle to climb the bare, unsupported concrete
stairs to the rooftop, negotiating the exposed metal poles protruding all
around me. For Reem the task is too much and she is effectively stranded on the
rooftop. It has become her prison.
Noor
cradles her daughter, Iman. Her son, Khalil, is bedbound, in need of an
operation on his shattered hip that she can’t afford. Her husband is missing in
Syria and, unable to pay rent, she was left homeless in Tripoli. Photograph:
Giles Duley
For many,
finding shelter isn’t the end of their nightmare. I visit Noor in a tiny
apartment on the sixth floor of a building in Tripoli. Like all the Syrians I
meet, her hospitality comes first; seeing I’m exhausted from the stairs and
heat, she fetches me a chair and cool water. Sitting opposite me, she cradles
her daughter, Iman; judging by the dark, exhausted circles that shroud their
eyes, neither has slept properly for weeks. On a sofa her 10-year-old son,
Khalil, winces in pain as he tries to shift position. Noor reaches over to
stroke his hair.
Just over
a year ago a bomb hit the building where they were living. Khalil was thrown
from the third floor and his hip was shattered. The family left for Lebanon,
but after six months Noor’s husband had to return to Syria to help his sick
mother. Noor has not heard from him since – he has become one of Syria’s
countless disappeared, presumed dead. It’s estimated that in Lebanon and Jordan
there are now more than 70,000 female-headed households
On her
own, with four children to support, Noor became increasingly desperate. Khalil
was bed-bound and in urgent need of an operation, but she was told that it
would cost $8,000, far more than she could ever afford. Without treatment, his
hip is deteriorating due to osteonecrosis, which causes him great pain. With no
income, they couldn’t pay rent and soon they found themselves living on the
street. Eventually a man took them in and let them live in the apartment where
I now visit them.
As she
tells me her story, I have a sense that there is something terribly wrong in
this situation. Wassila and Abdullah, the Handicap International team I’m with,
confirm my fears. “The man she is living with is not good to her,” Wassila
tells me. They are desperate to find her protective housing, she says, but have
not been able to find anywhere that can take her.
With
Khalil’s hip deteriorating and no way of making an income, Noor has few
options. As we leave she calls down the stairs, “Abdullah, please don’t forget
me!”
“Don’t
worry, it’s OK,” he calls back, and his words echo up the empty stairwell.
Handicap
International is one of many charities helping the Syrian refugees, but as the
only charity solely dedicated to supporting people with disabilities, they see
many of the worst cases. When visiting with the teams, I’m impressed by their
dedication and professionalism, but they are tired, worn down with the
relentlessness of this crisis. All the charities are stretched, their staff
pushed to breaking point.
Bana’s
house was bombed, she was accidentally shot by a neighbour’s child, and was so
traumatised by the many dead she saw that she stopped talking and eating, and
refused to leave her mother’s side. Photograph: Giles Duley
And
it’s not just the physical injuries of the Syrian war the charities are having
to deal with – there are the less visible wounds. Bana was four years old when
she was shot in the chest. It was an accident, a five-year-old boy discovered a
gun and while he played it went off. In Syria, weapons have become commonplace
and children are exposed to constant violence.
Bana
was taken to a small clinic where there was no medication or bandages and was
operated on without anaesthetic. All around her lay the bodies of those injured
and killed in recent bombings. She was left traumatised. When she saw the
bodies in the clinic she started shouting at everyone she knew, “Go, go, go!
Get out of here now, you will die in this place!”
By
the time she returned home, she had retreated into herself, as her mother
described: “She stopped talking. She wasn’t eating, she was aggressive, she was
beating her older brother and sister. She was afraid to go out, to open the
door, she was always afraid. Also she refused to walk. She always wanted me to
carry her. She wasn’t sleeping well, she had nightmares and would wake up
suddenly.”
The
UNHCR offered to get Bana and her family out of Syria, but before they could, a
bomb hit their house. Bana was injured again, as were her sister and mother.
They fled immediately for the border.
Now,
in Lebanon and with the help of HI’s psychologists, Bana is slowly recovering.
It’s a long and painful process; she’s still constantly afraid, shouts every
time she hears a plane and still refuses to leave her mother’s side. In some
ways, though, she is lucky. Nobody knows how many other children are suffering
from such trauma in Syria, but it’s in the tens of thousands and most are
receiving no treatment.
According
to Save the Children, four out of five Syrian children in Lebanon lack
schooling. For some it has been years since they had any education. That,
combined with the violence they’ve witnessed and the constant fear they feel,
has led charities to refer to them as a “lost generation” of Syrian children.
And this is the generation that will be expected to rebuild a shattered country
when peace does return.
When
people are classed as refugees, for many of us they lose their humanity and
individuality. But in these camps I don’t find refugees: I find taxi drivers,
mechanics, teachers, doctors, lawyers; I find mothers and fathers, children and
grandparents; I find the same hopes and fears that are expressed in households
across the world. And when I ask, “What is your dream?”, it’s always the same:
to go home, to go home.
Yet
with the chances of peace looking further away than ever, it seems unlikely any
of them will be going home soon. As the region prepares itself for an
intensification of the conflict, the situation is only going to get worse.
At
the beginning of the crisis, the Lebanese government had no strategy for
dealing with it. Many believed – or hoped – it would not last long and
certainly no one predicted the scale of the disaster. No camps were built,
ostensibly for historical and political reasons. Whether an “official” camp
would have been the answer is open to debate, but at least it might have formed
a organised centre for the NGOs’ work.
Even
the most developed country’s infrastructure would struggle to cope with the
sheer number of refugees that are arriving in Lebanon. Its infrastructure,
which was already weak, is now overwhelmed. Water, sanitation, electricity,
accommodation, schools, hospitals – none are able to meet the 25% increased
demand created by the refugee crisis.
It’s
easy to point the finger at the UNHCR as the central organisation dealing with
refugees and it is true that in some cases it isn’t meeting its own targets.
But it has received only 30% of the funding it sees as vital to operate on even
an emergency level. Without that funding it simply can’t do all it needs to.
“It’s easy to blame the UNHCR,” a Red Cross representative said to me, “but I’d
like to see anybody do a better job.”
It’s
not just the UNHCR that is struggling. Most of the charities operating in the
region are failing to reach even 50% of their funding needs and many vital
projects are being cut back. Housing, medical support, education, specialist
care for disabled people, vulnerable women and the elderly – all are under
threat. And every day more people arrive.
Aya
(centre) and her family arrived in Lebanon with nothing, and built this tent on
wasteland by a cement factory near Tripoli. With winter and freezing temperatures approaching, it offers them little protection. Photograph: G.Duley
So what
can be done to reduce the risk of Lebanon’s collapse and to safeguard the
wellbeing of the refugees most in need? Most agree that there has to be a clear
vision, one that moves on from temporary solutions and views the problem for
what it is: a long-term issue. Second, there needs to be far more support from
the rest of the world: donors must be found that can bridge the funding gap.
Ask the refugees or the NGOs in Lebanon what they think is the best way to deal
with this crisis, they all give the same answer: “Simple, we need to find peace
in Syria.”
Aya lives
in a small makeshift camp by the sea, a few miles from Tripoli, with her two
sisters, two brothers and parents. A handful of refugees have settled here, on
wasteland by a cement factory. There is little protection from the elements,
the children get sores from insect bites and every day there is the threat of
eviction.
There are
no schools, there are no jobs, and they can’t afford medical treatment. The
UNHCR provides Aya’s family with food coupons, but there is no support for
accommodation or shelter. Each week the family gets further in debt.
Just a few
months earlier, their lives were so different. The family had their own
business in Idlib. Aya’s mother, Sihan, worked as a kindergarten teacher, the
kids were doing well at school. Aya’s condition, though bad, was being well
monitored, with trips to the doctor every two weeks. They were, according to
Sihan, very happy.
Then in
March this year their home was destroyed. For 10 days they hid in a basement
while the bombing continued. They had no electricity, water or toilet. When the
bombing stopped, they escaped and headed to a cousin’s house in a nearby
village. The journey to Lebanon, and relative safety, took a further two
months.
Sihan
suddenly stops recounting their story. “It shouldn’t be me telling you this, it
is Iman who saved Aya. She should tell you. She held her. Iman carried Aya all
the way from Syria.”
Iman is
sitting on the floor next to Aya; she’s just nine years old. “You carried her?”
I ask.
“Yes, I
have been carrying her since she was one year old. I can’t hold her like a baby
any more, so I hold her on my hip.
“When the
war came,” Iman takes up the story, “we hid in a store underground. I was
looking after my sister. All the time we were afraid because we could hear the
bombing. I was keeping Aya on my lap all the time, she was so scared.”
“She did
everything for her,” Sihan interjects. “She changed her dressings and changed
her clothes, she did everything for her. It took us two months to get here and
Iman carried her.”
I try to
imagine that journey. The risks and challenges for anyone fleeing though a
war-torn country are so great; but with a child in a wheelchair, a paralysed
partner or frail grandparent those challenges become near impossible.
Similarly,
being a carer is difficult and often overwhelming in the best of situations.
However, trying to provide 24-hour care for somebody with a disability in a
makeshift tent, with no running water, sanitation or easy access to medical
care is unthinkable. Yet many are having to do just that.
Later that
day, as the sun drops and the temperatures become bearable, the children go out
to play. As always, Iman is carrying Aya. As I’ve spent more time with the
family I’ve noticed Aya’s feisty nature and how, being so full of life, she
brings happiness to those around her despite their terrible circumstances. Now,
as they start a game of hopscotch with the other children, Aya screams with
laughter and I finally see the photograph I’ve been searching for.
Raising my
camera I shoot a few frames and I’m done. I walk over to Aya, who’s now in her
wheelchair, and ask her, “You must love your sister very much?”
She pulls
a funny, quizzical face, then smiles as she stretches out her arms as wide as
she can. “This much,” she says. “I love her as much as the sea.”
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