Beirut blast brings fresh misery to displaced Syrians in Lebanon

A man talks on the phone while seated by the rubble of a destroyed traditional building in the Gemmayzeh neighborhood after a cataclysmic port explosion which devastated Lebanon's capital Beirut. (AFP/File Photo)
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Updated 18 August 2020
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Beirut blast brings fresh misery to displaced Syrians in Lebanon

  • Of the 177 deaths confirmed so far, 43 were Syrians working at the Port of Beirut on the evening of August 4
  • Syrians’ savings in Lebanese banks have drastically lost value since the start of the economic and financial crisis

DUBAI: It was 2012, and Lina Attar Ajami was spending the summer in Canada when a bomb went off near her neighborhood of Rawda in Damascus.

Her father called her immediately and told her not to return to Syria. “You must go to Beirut and find a house and make your life there,” Ajami recalled being told.

She followed his instructions and moved to an apartment in Saifi Village, an upscale neighborhood within walking distance of Gemmayze, the beating heart of Beirut.

“You escape a country for security. You escape a war of nine years in order to give your children security and not let them be exposed to the atrocities of war. But this — the Aug. 4 blast in Beirut — is worse than anything my family went through during the Syrian civil war,” Ajami told Arab News by phone from Beirut.

Even before the blast, Lebanon was in a state of free fall following months of economic and political turmoil marked by mass unemployment, hyperinflation and social unrest.

But the devastation caused by the blast has wreaked unprecedented havoc on the Lebanese capital, leaving an estimated 300,000 homeless and an even larger number of people in need of assistance of some kind.

Of the 177 deaths confirmed so far, 43 were Syrians working at the Port of Beirut, according to a statement from the Syrian Embassy in the Lebanese capital. The UN refugee agency has put the Syrian toll at 34, of which eight bodies are still missing.

The workers were refugees, earning daily as little as 50,000 Lebanese pounds  ($33 at official rate, $6.6 at market rate).

Their bodies, like their existence up until Aug. 4, are unlikely to be accounted for.

Each of their families, living in the blast-devastated capital of a crisis-torn country, has likely lost not only its breadwinner but also its livelihood.




A picture of victims is displayed inside their damaged apartment facing the port of Beirut following the cataclysmic explosion. (AFP)

Ajami’s 12-year-old daughter was severely wounded in the blast. “We live on the 11th floor, so I could see the port. I heard my daughter screaming in the salon. I ran there and found her covered in blood. Blood was all over the walls,” she said.

Ajami’s husband carried his daughter downstairs and dashed off in search of a hospital, but they were full beyond capacity. “People were getting into fights just to get their loved ones admitted,” she said. “It was hell.”

The couple decided to take their daughter to south Beirut, where they found a hospital willing to admit her. She has since undergone two surgeries and is currently recovering.




Volunteers distribute aid supplies to those affected by the cataclysmic explosion in Beirut's port area, on August 12, 2020. (AFP/File Photo)

“There’s nothing more disturbing than thinking you’re in the safety of your home and a sudden blast takes away all the security you thought you had in your adopted country,” Ajami said. “As Syrians, this is our second loss. It’s beyond description.”

The Syrians currently in Lebanon, estimated at 910,000, are a mixture of registered and unregistered refugees, as well as migrant workers and others.

Those who fled Syria because of the civil war kept most, if not all, of their life savings in banks in Lebanon.

The value of their deposits has eroded drastically since the start of the economic and financial crisis.

FASTFACT

Syrians in Lebanon

* At least 34 Beirut blast victims were Syrian workers.

* Lebanon hosts 890,000 Syrian refugees.

* Two-thirds of the refugees live below poverty line.

* Lebanon’s estimated population is 6 million.

“Syrians relocated to Lebanon and placed all their wealth in Lebanese banks, knowing that no other country would agree to open bank accounts for Syrians,” said Ajami. “Their savings have dwindled in real terms as a result of the stringent capital controls.”

According to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, the Syrian government estimated in January the total amount belonging to Syrians in Lebanese banks at about $45 billion — roughly a quarter of deposits held by Lebanese banks.

That said, many Syrians are content with having survived the blast that shattered Beirut. “I was sure by the time someone asked about me I’d be dead,” said Haidara M., a kickboxing instructor who left Syria in 2016 in search of a better life in the Lebanese capital.

At the time of the blast, caused by a long-neglected stock of ammonium nitrate, Haidara was in the bathroom of his apartment.




Lina Attar Ajami’s apartment, where her 12-year-old daughter was severely wounded in the blast. (Supplied: Lina Attar Ajami)

Freeing himself of the debris that fell on him, he ran out into the middle of a street in the hope that someone would help him. “I’m afraid of dying in a country without any family to bury me,” he told Arab News.

A Syrian who lives in the Lebanese capital and works with an international NGO said: “Syrians living in Beirut have been affected on an emotional level. They fled Syria to Lebanon to live in a safer place, but are now trying to leave Lebanon for the same reason.”

He added: “We still don’t have clear information regarding Syrians living in Lebanon who’ve been affected by the blast. No one knows the names of the 43 Syrians who died at the port.”

One Syrian national who has returned to Damascus following the explosion is Rana Tamimi, who specializes in marketing and communications.

She was allowed to cross the border into Syria after she took a COVID-19 test (for which she paid 150,000 Lebanese pounds) in Beirut and got a negative result.




A general view shows the Moroccan field hospital in Karantina neighbourhood near the port of Beirut, on August 12, 2020. (AFP)

“I moved to Beirut from Damascus eight years ago after a big explosion behind my house in Damascus,” she told Arab News.

“There was a lot of fear in the streets then and I had to leave. The effect of the explosion that happened in Beirut was equal to the sum of the horrors of eight years of war.”

Nimat Bizri, a half Algerian, half Syrian woman married to a Lebanese man who has lived in Lebanon for 24 years, said: “Since the blast, I feel helpless and depressed … The border to Syria has remained closed for three months now due to COVID-19. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel.”

Bizri runs the Social Support Society, an NGO founded in 2006 that provides quality programs and opportunities to Syrian refugees residing in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. It caters to 2,500 students spread over five centers located in different villages.

But Syrians face an altogether new challenge in the wake of the destruction in Beirut. Cases have come to light of discrimination against migrants and refugees trying to access emergency aid.

“No support is being given to Palestinian and Syrian refugees who’ve been working and living in Beirut,” said Bizri. “The Lebanese people haven’t been giving them support since the explosion.”

Dalia Al-Ogaily, a Syrian-Iraqi resident of Beirut who previously lived in Syria, recently joined a group of friends who had volunteered to do social work in different parts of the city.




Survivors of Beirut's August 4 blast are still in shock over a disaster that disfigured their city. The earth-shaking explosion killed 171 people and wounded more than 6,000, a sickening blow to a country already in crisis. (AFP)

“On our way to downtown Beirut, we spotted the Banin Charity Association in action so we offered to help,” she told Arab News.

“Initially they allowed us to help people in the neighborhood by interviewing them and assessing their needs. However, after a few hours, when we ran into a Syrian woman in need, the coordinator of the charity told us not to help her because, according to its policy, it’s meant to help only Lebanese.”

The incident sparked controversy on social media that culminated in the resignation of Fadi Al-Khateeb, a renowned Lebanese basketball player, from his position as the Banin Charity Association’s goodwill ambassador.

Complaints of discrimination against non-Lebanese in aid distribution also prompted Alexandra Tarzikhan, a Syrian human rights lawyer based in Chicago, to comment: “The blast didn’t discriminate when it chose whose lives to take and which houses to destroy.”

In recent years, Gulf Cooperation Council member countries have become the home of many Arab families fed up with their home countries’ poverty, corruption, sectarian politics and conflict.




Firefighters carry the coffin of their colleague Joe Noun, who was killed in Beirut's massive blast, during his funeral at the fire station in Karantina neighbourhood near the port on August 12, 2020. (AFP/File Photo)

Syrians and Lebanese are among the tens of thousands who have chosen to start a new life in the UAE, drawn by the lure of peace and financial security.

Leaving his home in Damascus in 2012 to escape the war, Alaa Krimed lived for two years in Beirut before moving to Dubai.

Now the Syrian-Palestinian is the artistic director of the Sima Dance Co. in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue.

“I loved Beirut, but I also hated Beirut because I struggled a lot there,” he told Arab News, recalling the need to reapply for residency papers every three months. “The people are wonderful but the government is corrupt, and this is why I moved from Beirut to Dubai.”

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Twitter: @rebeccaaproctor


More than 15,000 Syrian refugees return home from Jordan in May

Updated 6 sec ago
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More than 15,000 Syrian refugees return home from Jordan in May

  • UNHCR reported that the figure represents a 45 percent increase compared to April
  • Jordan has received about 628,000 Syrian refugees, according to UNHCR figures as of December 2024

LONDON: More than 15,000 Syrian refugees registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have returned to their home country from Jordan since May.

The UNHCR reported that the figure represents a 45 percent increase compared to April, when nearly 10,500 Syrian refugees entered the country through Jordan’s Jaber border crossing.

Since the collapse of the Assad regime in December, 75,000 Syrian refugees have returned home from Jordan alone, which is more than one percent of the estimated six million Syrians who fled the country during the civil war that began in 2011.

As of March, the UN estimated that nearly 1.2 million Syrian refugees and internally displaced people have returned home following the change in power in Damascus.

The UNHCR announced the transfer of thousands of refugees from Jordanian communities and refugee camps to Syria in May, marking a significant increase from April, according to the SANA news agency.

Jordan has received about 628,000 Syrian refugees, according to UNHCR figures as of December 2024.


UAE and Jordan condemn terror attack on Pakistani military convoy that killed 13 soldiers

Updated 30 June 2025
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UAE and Jordan condemn terror attack on Pakistani military convoy that killed 13 soldiers

  • A further 24 people were injured, 14 of them civilians, when a car bomb exploded near a bomb-disposal vehicle in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday
  • Emirati Foreign Ministry sends condolences to families of the victims and the people of Pakistan following the ‘cowardly attack’

LONDON: Authorities in the UAE and Jordan have strongly condemned a terrorist attack on a military convoy in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan in which 13 soldiers were killed and at least 24 people were injured.

The Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent its condolences to the families of the victims, and all the people of Pakistan, following the “heinous and cowardly attack,” along its best wishes for a speedy recovery of those who were injured.

It added that the UAE firmly rejects all forms of terrorism and violence that undermine security and stability.

Jordan’s Foreign Ministry similarly condemned the attack and expressed its solidarity with Pakistan during this terrible time.

A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the military convoy on Saturday and it detonated near a bomb disposal vehicle. Of the 24 people who were injured, 14 are civilians.

Armed group Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. It was one of the deadliest, single-day incidents in recent months targeting security forces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.


Qatari emir, Spanish king meet on sidelines of UN investment conference in Seville

Updated 30 June 2025
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Qatari emir, Spanish king meet on sidelines of UN investment conference in Seville

  • King Felipe expressed his desire to strengthen relations and support joint investments with Qatar
  • He reiterated Spain’s solidarity with Qatar and condemned the Iranian attack on Al-Udeid Air Base last week

LONDON: Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, met King Felipe VI of Spain in Seville on the sidelines of a UN-organized international investment conference.

The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development began on Monday and will continue until July 3, bringing together global leaders to discuss urgent reforms necessary for financing sustainable development.

King Felipe expressed his desire to strengthen relations and support joint investments through small and medium-sized enterprises following the recent economic agreements between Qatar and Spain.

He also reiterated Spain’s solidarity with Qatar and condemned the Iranian attack on Al-Udeid Air Base last week, praising Doha’s role in facilitating a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel.

Sheikh Tamim emphasized Qatar’s commitment to enhancing cooperation with Spain across cultural, educational and security fields to serve the common interests of both countries, the Qatar News Agency reported.


Israeli settlers hold wedding ceremony inside Al-Aqsa Mosque under police protection

Updated 30 June 2025
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Israeli settlers hold wedding ceremony inside Al-Aqsa Mosque under police protection

  • The Jerusalem Governorate deemed the move ‘provocative and humiliating’

LONDON: Israeli authorities permitted a wedding engagement ceremony for Jewish settlers within the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied Old City of East Jerusalem on Monday.

The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Governorate deemed the move “provocative and humiliating,” describing it as a transformation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque into what resembles a public hall for celebrations by extremist settlers.

“(This is) a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the mosque, a serious provocation of the feelings of Muslims, and a deliberate attempt to impose a new reality that erases the Islamic identity of the site and paves the way for its division temporally and spatially,” the Jerusalem Governorate said.

On Monday, settlers, accompanied by Israeli police, toured the Al-Aqsa compound. Police prevented Palestinians from approaching the settlers to disrupt the ceremony, according to the Wafa news agency.

The Jerusalem Governorate said that Israeli policies aim to impose sovereignty on Al-Aqsa Mosque, stressing that these repeated provocations contradict international law and the 2016 UNESCO resolution, which recognized Al-Aqsa Mosque as an Islamic heritage site and called for its preservation.

Since 1967, the Jerusalem Endowments Council, which operates under Jordan’s Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, has been the legal authority responsible for managing and regulating the affairs of Al-Aqsa.

However, this status quo has been challenged in recent years by extremist settlers who regularly tour the site under the protection of Israeli police and are often accompanied by government officials and far-right ministers and activists.


UK MPs demand Ukraine-style visa route for Gazans

Updated 30 June 2025
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UK MPs demand Ukraine-style visa route for Gazans

  • Letter to PM: ‘The same generosity should be extended to Palestinian families’
  • Death toll ‘likely to be exponentially higher’ than official figure due to collapse of local govt, health systems

LONDON: MPs in the UK are calling on the government to launch a visa system for Palestinians in Gaza with family already living in Britain.

Sixty-seven politicians have written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper asking for a Gaza Family Scheme mirroring the Ukraine Family Scheme established in 2022 to help refugees escape the war with Russia. It allowed Ukrainians to live and work in the UK for up to three years.

“We believe that the same generosity should be extended to Palestinian families,” said the letter, seen by Sky News.

Signatories include 35 Labour MPs and members of the House of Lords, as well as several people currently suspended from the governing party, including its former leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. 

All four sitting members of the Green Party have also signed, alongside former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and the Bishop of Chelmsford Dr. Guli Francis-Dehquani.

The letter accuses Israel of “shattering the temporary ceasefire agreement” with Hamas in Gaza, and of conducting a “campaign of bombardment and military assaults, and targeting of people accessing humanitarian aid.”

MP Marsha de Cordova, who helped organize the letter alongside the Gaza Families Reunited campaign, told Sky News that the Ukraine visa scheme “was the right response to a brutal war,” and that establishing one for Gazans “would be an extension of those same principles, showing that this government is steadfast in its commitment to helping families experiencing the worst horrors of war.

“It is time for the government to act now to help British Palestinians get their loved ones to safety, enabling them to rebuild their lives.”

The letter said the proposed scheme would let Palestinians reunite with “people they may never see again unless urgent action is taken,” and many Gazans trying to reach the UK “struggled to navigate the immigration system.”

It added that efforts to secure visas have been made “impossible due to the destruction of the visa application centre in Gaza and blockade of the Rafah crossing.”

The letter said the death toll in Gaza, reported by Palestinian authorities as numbering at least 53,000 people, “is likely to be exponentially higher” due to the collapse of local government and health systems in the enclave.

Ghassan Ghaben, spokesperson for Gaza Families Reunited, told Sky News: “Family unity is an undeniable human right.”

He urged more MPs, including Conservatives, to add their names to efforts to help get Palestinians to the UK, saying: “We are still waiting for the new government to do the right thing. We, as Palestinians in the UK, simply want the opportunity to bring our loved ones from Gaza to safety, until it is safe to return.”

A government spokesperson told Sky News: “The death and destruction in Gaza is intolerable. Since day one, we have been clear that we need to see an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages cruelly detained by Hamas, better protection of civilians, significantly more aid consistently entering Gaza, and a path to long-term peace and stability.

“There are a range of routes available for Palestinians who wish to join family members in the UK.”