Report
AMONG THE SYRIAN REFUGEES

THE FACES OF FLIGHT
Marj el Kok. A stretch of rocks and red land in south Lebanon: 200 tents of refugees, with almost no supplies necessary to live. Within the past year, more than a million people escaped from Syria. But their world is not one concerned about numbers; there, humanity is begging for a normal life.

by Paola Ronconi – photographs by Roberto Masi

April 10th. “I need $1,000 to deliver my son in a hospital. Where am I going to get that?” Next to Mohammed is Douaa, his pregnant wife. She never smiles. “If I give birth here, I will die,” she says simply. Mohammed lives with three wives and thirteen children in his tent. The kids jump excitedly at the sight of a camera. The photographer Roberto Masi is there, in the Marj el Kok refugee camp in south of Lebanon, to see and show the world the faces of those people who fled the Syrian civil war. His photo collection records the daily life that, even in the most banal gestures like washing and eating, is dramatic. It’s another world that hardly has flesh, legs, and eyes for us, but just numbers in newspaper articles.
You get to Marj el Kok after traversing a strip of land between trees, leaving the main street that goes from the village of Marjayoun toward Hasbaya. Six month ago, this stretch of red earth, stones, and mud (when it rains), had only five or six tents for seasonal farmers. Today, there are 200 tents: their roofs and walls are nothing but panels and commercial tarps put together in some way and held up by wooden boards. On the ground, there is a patch of cement and, if they are lucky, there are carpets and a few mattresses. Between tents, you see laundry on clotheslines, washed who knows how, in addition to a few cars and old trucks, some broken down.

They left everything. The numbers of this war are impressive: within a year, 50,000 Syrian families have reached the borders of Lebanon by foot or any vehicle that would take them, even by taxi. More than 50% of this mass migration is made up of women and children who were forced to flee, alone, from bombings in Homs, Idlib, and Aleppo. They left everything in Syria: their homes, jobs, and a part of their families. Within a few days, they have travelled from the Lebanese borders to the plains of Marjayoun, a southern region of farmed lands, in search of jobs.
“You can tell from their gaze that they have seen terrible things in their country,” says Roberto–as had Zaynab and Zahraa, mother and daughter who live outside of Homs. “They told us that one night the anti-Assad rebels broke into their home; they saw them coming so they hid in the attic. They locked themselves in for three days. Then, the soldiers left and they decided to escape.”
In April, Saraqeb, southwest of Aleppo, was subject to frequent bombings from the artillery of the Damascus regime. Sultan’s family (two wives and eight children, all under the age of eight) escaped to their relatives’ home. When Sultan came back, his house was burned to the ground, just like his neighbor’s was–but they were inside the house that day.
The Lebanese government does not authorize the building of official refugee camps, but it is showing signs of being very available to help. The refugees, however, counting ones not registered with the Unhcr (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), are becoming too numerous. “We are talking about millions of new arrivals in a village of five million people,” says Marco Perini, who is responsible for the AVSI project in Lebanon. He continues, “If the war reaches Damascus, we can count on another million refugees in a very short time. There are villages in West Bekaa whose refugee count is the same as the number of inhabitants.”
Syrians are always the seasonal labor in Marjayoun. But because of all the refugees, it is difficult to find work in the camps and earn $15 per day. In Marj el Kok, there are weeks where you can eat daily, but others where you have to skip meals. Children of six or seven help around the camps or they are sent to other villages and in the streets to search for cans or copper to sell–recycling. Of the 300 children under the age of 18, maybe 40 are able to go to school in Marjayoun. Perini says, “The Lebanese government charitably welcomed them in their public structures, and we rent a bus to take them back and forth. It’s obvious that there are many difficulties because they teach in French in Lebanon and in Arabic in Syria.” Then, sometimes a bus comes to the camp with volunteers from AVSI and UNICEF carrying toys and school supplies. They improvise a party so as to make them forget where they are for a couple of hours. “Last week, as soon as Moustafa, who is eight years old with huge eyes and a smile of 32 teeth, saw the bus, he launched himself toward it, together with his friends,” recounts Perini. “But his father Mohammad yelled at him to get back to collecting cans. ‘He can go without,’ said Mohammad.”

Hassan and Ibrahim. The children want to be captured in front of the camera; they jump on Masi just to be photographed. “It’s just like where we come from,” observes Masi. From behind a tent appear two feminine figures. They have veils over their faces and they ask not to be photographed because they are not married. They hide their faces with their hands as they pass by, but their furtive gazes seem older than their age–they are 12. “I ask myself if someone has already decided their future,” says Masi. There are a few people whose daily cross of living in the camp is heavier because of a handicap or illness. Mariam is 74 and weighs 200 pounds. She cannot move. Hassan is a little boy of five. He has a serious handicap. “Yesterday, we went to Beirut to buy two wheelchairs,” recalls Perini. “I am not sure how they are able to get around the camp between mud, puddles, and dirt, but it’s always better to try than to stay in a tent when it is 86 degrees out.”
Ibrahim and his brother, who are four and ten, are blind and almost completely paralyzed. They arrived here together with their 16 siblings. They need everything, including to be cleaned, fed, and moved in some way or another. Two women in the tents are changing their diapers. “The tent stays open during the day, so they know that it’s daytime. Everyone at the camp, especially the older ladies, give them a hand, but they need much more–a precise diagnosis and therapy.” They have even brought them to the hospital, but it costs $100 per day per person and the parents could only afford a visit for one of them. “There is some help from the Unhcr that can be accessed by refugees, but it takes at least six months to complete the registration process,” says Marco. “Moreover, in order to register and have benefits (they pay 70% of delivery costs and if you have a handicap they provide the equipment needed), you have to go to Tyre, 55 miles south of Beirut. It’s not enough for the father to go, but everyone in the family has to go. For example, Mariam’s family rented a bus for $250 so that they could take her. Not everyone can afford that, though.” In the back of the tent stands a girl of 12 with her little brother between her legs. “Lice,” declares Marco. “Until a few weeks ago, the biggest emergency was the cold so we distributed blankets. Now, with the heat reaching 104 degrees, we are thinking about water supply, and how to carry the tanks. But, with outside bathrooms, the problem will be how to keep the water sterile.”

A glass of tea. Once a week, Marco meets a committee of ten people living in the camp, eight men and two women. They make decisions about urgent needs. “The last time, we argued for 15 minutes about the tea. What we had distributed was not of good quality, according to them, and it wasn’t sweet enough. I didn’t understand! You arrive at the camp, you are desperate, you have lost everything, and you come tell me that the tea is not good?! Then I understood, for a person who lives in a situation of extreme discomfort, a glass of tea is essential in the Arab culture. It can be a moment of ‘normal’ life. A glass of tea, which is one of the two meals of the day, if not the only one, is important. It’s important that it’s good and well sweetened.”
Looking at it from this perspective, it seems so far away, just like peace. On Syrian soil, violence continues and the conflict’s toll has reached 80,000 dead. A new Geneva Conference is set for June, but the international diplomacies struggle to come up with effective measures. The refugees, who are either for Assad or the rebels, have clearly in mind what they want: they want to go home, even though they don’t know what they will find.
In the meantime, here on May 7th Ahmed was born, the fourteenth child of Mohammed. He was born in the hospital, “under a good star,” said his father, smiling.