Hot days in the Bekaa Valley, 32 degrees in the shade. Great for those who have cold water and air conditioning in the car, tough for the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees living in the lousy camps. Some of them in the eighth year.
Abri Aid is in Lebanon for the 20th time since its inception in the beginning of 2017, thursday we have been around in several hospitals and followed up on 16 patients who we have, at the request of the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA), committed to helping.
As a little Yamana in one year operated for brain tumor. And six-year-old Ayam who, due to complications after an operation, has had major problems with the intestinal system. We cross our fingers for both.
Some of the measures we are involved in are splicing teams between several organizations and individuals, where neither the UN nor the authorities have the means to contribute – no matter how serious it is. It is absolutely crucial for many peoples lives that the international community stands up.
If you want to participate in the splicing team, you can flip an amount to Vipps #525988 (only for Norwegians), the donation will be used in the camps and in the hospitals.
The fire
It has been a year and a half since Alfred stood in a smoky fire area in the Beka Valley. At that time, eight children died, a tent fired when the door to the diesel stove was opened.
Now I also have felt the smell of a fire of death, this time after it narrowed into a temporary electrical plant last weekend. A seven-month-old Syrian boy died in the flames.
Since 2013, the family has been living on a roof in a former vegetable market on the outskirts of the big city of Zahle, now turned into one of the over a thousand refugee camps in Lebanon. They are from the north of Syria, on the border with Turkey. From a still very troubled area they dare not return to.
Talking to the father of the little one and with the grandfather was a great experience. The mother was inconsolable and didn’t want to talk to anyone.
It is difficult to say what we can do for these, but Abri Aid bought food, equipment and lots of clothes collected from the norwegian oil company Aker BP. Words become poor in the face of such people, but they welcomed us as representatives of Norway and the international community thinking of them.
Leukemia
We also visited a boy who has leukemia. We pay regularly for his treatment, we are his only option to stay alive. Awaad is 17, but the picture shows how characterized he is from the disease. He lives with his mother and her sister, and with five young children. The fathers never got out of the war in Syria, they are believed to have died. They are poor and have no rights in Lebanon, neither financial nor medical.
We were also in a hospital and then a patient with terrible burns. A boy of seven years who has got his face and large parts of his body destroyed. He is going to follow us up during the summer and autumn, but this is so complicated and costly that we have to create a splicing team. We didn’t take pictures of the boy, it was simply too cruel what we saw.
There was also some joy. It is ramadan and next week it is eid. We usually do not spend money on gifts and toys, but today we made an exception. About 150 children in a miserable tent camp each got their own play, the joy scenes that stretched out telling them that it was worth it.