BAR ELIAS, Lebanon (AP) – Mohammed Zakaria has lived in a plastic tent in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon for almost as long as war has broken out in his native Syria.
He and his family fled the bombings in 2012, thinking it would be a short, temporary stay. His hometown, Homs, was besieged and subjected to a fierce Syrian military campaign. He didn’t even carry his ID.
Almost ten years later, the family has not yet returned. Zakaria, 53, is among millions of Syrians who are unlikely to return in the foreseeable future, even though they are facing deteriorating living conditions abroad. In addition to his displacement, Zakaria now struggles to survive Lebanon’s financial downturn and social implosion..
“We assumed we would come in and out,” Zakaria said, sitting outside her tent on a recently cold day as her children walked around in worn-out slippers.
Syria has been embroiled in civil war since 2011, when Syrians revolted against President Bashar Assad amid a wave of Arab Spring riots. The protests in Syria, which began in March of that year, quickly turned into an insurgency (and finally a full-blown civil war) in response to a brutal military crackdown on Assad’s security apparatus.
About half a million people have died, and about 12,000 children have died or were injured in the conflict over the past decade, according to the UN children’s agency UNICEF. The conflict also resulted in the largest displacement crisis since World War II.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said this week that since the war began in 2011, an estimated 2.4 million people have been displaced each year inside and outside Syria. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are facing constant displacement every year the conflict continues and economic conditions deteriorate.
The war has left Syria divided and in ruins. About a million children have been born in exile.
Of the country’s 23 million pre-war population, about 5.6 million are refugees living in neighboring countries and in Europe. Some 6.5 million are displaced in Syria, most for more than five years.
Lebanon, a small Mediterranean country with a population of about 5 million, is home to the highest concentration of refugees per capita, estimated at around one million. Most of them live in makeshift tent establishments distributed in Lebanon’s Bekaa, not far from the Syrian border.
Zakaria, a former porter for a construction company in Homs, has struggled to provide for his family, although he continues to grow up in Lebanon. He has two wives and eight children, including two who were born in Lebanon. One of his children was just one year old when the family fled Syria.
In Lebanon, it is difficult to get to work, as an economic and financial crisis hits the country. Financial assistance is scarce and erratic. A fall in the currency caused inflation and prices to skyrocket. Now Zakaria is trying to get the two bosses by selling gas bottles that are used to heat other refugees from their settlement.
It makes 1,000 Lebanese pounds (about 10 cents) from every jar of gas it sells. But this winter, its neighbors in the settlement, which houses about 200 Syrian refugee families, could hardly afford to buy enough gasoline to heat their tents.
Through the unprecedented economic crisis, Lebanon’s currency has so far lost more than 80% of its value.
“Life is expensive here,” he said. “It’s so expensive even for drugs or doctors.”
When his wife needed urgent eye surgery, Zakariya arranged for his brief introduction of contraband to Syria to perform the surgery there. The surgery would cost 22 million Lebanese pounds, about $ 2,200 at the current market rate. They managed to do so in Syria for 85,000 Lebanese pounds ($ 850).
Zakaria said she feels great sadness for her three young children who have no memories of Syria and her home in Homs. They haven’t been to school either and can’t read or write.
According to UNICEF, about 750,000 Syrian children in neighboring countries, including Lebanon, are out of school.
“Now all our memories are gone,” Zakaria said, watching her children run around, beating them up. Two dirty stray cats serve as playmates.
“We now have a generation: 10-year-olds are a new generation,” he said. “I have small children and … they don’t even know our neighbors” at home.
Many Syrians cannot return because their homes were destroyed during the fighting or because they fear military recruitment or the retribution of government forces.
Zakaria clings to the hope that one day she will return home.
“God willing we will die in our country,” he said. “Everyone should die in their country.”