Twin refugee crises tax capacity of relief agencies

BEDDAWI, North Lebanon/BEIRUT: Hundreds of families fled clashes in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in the Southern city of Sidon Sunday evening, opening a new front in the escalating humanitarian crisis for Lebanon's Palestinian-refugee population. About 300 families, including 25 who had taken part in a similar exodus from Nahr al-Bared less than two weeks ago, evacuated the neighborhoods of Taamir and Tawareq inand around Lebanon's largest Palestinian camp, said the head of the Southern branch of the Palestinian NGO Nebaah, Qassem Saad, in a phone interview with The Daily Star from Ain al-Hilweh on Monday. Some sought refuge in the nearby Bourj al-Shemali and Rashidiyeh camps, others in downtown Sidon - in parks, the Abu Saleh Mosque or the municipal compound - and the rest with relatives elsewhere in Lebanon.

The Sidon Municipality bussed "a big portion of the 300 families who left" back to their homes in Tawareq and Taamir before midnight, but renewed gunfire forced residents to flee the camp for the second time in one day, Saad said.

"They are waiting for guarantees that things have calmed down before they come back, but I think if nothing happens tonight, most will return," he said of Ain al-Hilweh residents currently camped in Sidon.

But twice-displaced families and those who are staying with relatives in other camps "probably won't return anytime soon," he added. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said they have located 19 families that fled Ain al-Hilweh in the Rashidiyeh camp, and "there may be more." On Monday, Saad joined in a rising chorus of humanitarian organizations calling for an end to the violence in Nahr al-Bared before the crisis spreads further

"If violence in Nahr al-Bared continues, the entire Palestinian population in Lebanon will be affected," he said. "Tensions are running high and they will explode into violence if civil society and the Palestinian groups do not intervene to stop violence against the Lebanese Army."

Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PCRS) spokesman Mohammad Osman said the one PCRS medical clinic in Ain al-Hilweh - staffed by one doctor and two nurses - was ready to accept patients Monday but has not treated any civilians wounded in Sunday's fighting.

"The situation is tense, very tense," he said. "People are worried, the streets are empty and the schools are closed. Most of the people who left returned to their homes in Ain al-Hilweh, but the displaced from Nahr al-Bared fled to the Bourj al-Barajneh camp in Beirut."

Tensions have been escalating in the 12 Palestinian enclaves across the country - nowhere more so than in Ain al-Hilweh - since the Lebanese Army retaliated for an attack by Fatah al-Islam militants at Nahr al-Bared on May 20, causing more than 27,000 residents to flood into other camps - over 23,000 of them to Beddawi - according to the latest UNRWA estimates.