BEIRUT (AP)
-- They're lightweight, easy to assemble and have covers that are
supposed to keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The U.N.
refugee agency wants to test these individual housing units with an eye
toward using them as shelter for Syrians fleeing their country's civil
war.
But the plan is meeting stiff resistance
from Lebanese officials, who fear that elevating living conditions for
Syrian refugees ever so slightly will discourage them from returning
home once the fighting ends. That frustrates aid organizations who are
desperately trying to manage the massive refugee presence across the
country.
Lebanon's refusal to set up any kind
of organized accommodation for tens of thousands of Syrians - including
refugee camps or government-sanctioned tent sites - is a reflection of
its own civil war demons. It underlines the nation's deep seated fear of
a repeat of the 1975-1990 war, for which many Lebanese at least partly
blame Palestinian refugees.
Many regard the
Syrians with suspicion and are worried that the refugees, most of them
Sunni Muslims, would stay in the country permanently, upsetting
Lebanon's delicate sectarian balance and re-igniting the country's
explosive mix of Christian and Muslim sects.
"It's
the fear of everything permanent, or semi-permanent, because of the
Palestinian experience in Lebanon," said Makram Maleeb, a program
manager for a Syrian refugee crisis unit at Lebanon's Ministry for
Social Affairs.
"Any move toward a camp
situation is quite worrisome because it suggests a permanent situation
for the refugees," he told The Associated Press.
Palestinians
living in Arab countries - including the 450,000 in Lebanon - are
descendants of the hundreds of thousands who fled or were driven from
their homes in the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948. They
remain in Lebanon's 12 refugee camps because Israel and the Palestinians
have never reached a deal that would enable them to return to their
homes that are now in Israel.
The civil war in
Syria, now in its third year, has killed more than 100,000 people and
uprooted millions from their homes. Many fled to Iraq, Turkey, Jordan
and Lebanon, a short drive away from the capital, Damascus.
On
any given day in Lebanon, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of refugees
arrive in cars loaded with children and belongings. Their presence has
swelled the country's population of 4.5 million by a fifth. It's an
astounding statistic for the tiny country and represents the highest
number of refugees per capita of any country in the region.
Officials
say an estimated 1.2 million Syrians are now in Lebanon - including
some 620,000 registered refugees. Most arrived over the past eight
months.
With the government providing none of
the facilities and land that authorities in Turkey, Jordan and Iraq have
allocated for the refugees, many Syrians in Lebanon live in appalling
conditions, finding shelter in slums, tents and tin shacks strung with
laundry lines and wedged between farm lands outside towns and cities.
On
a casual walk in Beirut, one finds Syrians sheltering in underground
parking lots, under bridges and old construction sites with no running
water, sanitation, electricity or protection from Lebanon's sizzling
summers and its freezing winters.
"The kids
get sick all the time here," said Raghda, a 48-year-old mother of eight,
living in an abandoned police station in the eastern Lebanese town of
Majdal Anjar, along with 21 other relatives. They are crammed into three
rooms without proper sanitation or clean water.
About
10 percent of the refugees are accommodated in unfinished private
houses, and others live in garages, shops and collective shelters,
according to the UNHCR. Most of them - over 80 percent - rent
accommodation that costs more than $200 a month on average.
Lebanese
officials say they are aware of the magnitude of the crisis, the health
risks involved and the possibility that deepening resentment of
refugees among the hosting population could turn into an armed conflict
inside Lebanon as the civil war drags on in Syria.
Still,
they insist the government will not approve any plans for setting up
refugee camps or sanction erecting any kind of structure specifically
designed to accommodate refugee families on Lebanese soil no matter who
designs it and who pays for it.
"It's
distressing and everyone is feeling anxious, wondering if they will ever
go back as the fighting goes on and on and on," Maleeb said.
Still, he said it was unlikely the housing unit would be approved.
Ninette
Kelley, UNHCR representative in Lebanon, said the refugees "desperately
want to return home." But having people live in appalling conditions
will not force them out of Lebanon before the fighting stops in Syria,
she said.
`"There is this psychological worry
that if people are put in a semi-permanent structure, they will never
leave," Kelley told the AP. They will leave, she said, adding that one
of the greatest impediments of going home after the fighting ends is not
having a place to live in Syria.
The
17.5-square-meter (yard) refugee housing unit would offer a family of
five a "more dignified life in exile," said Kamel Deriche, UNHCR's
operations manager in Lebanon, and enables refugees to dismantle it,
pack it and carry it home to reuse as a temporary accommodation until
their family home is rebuilt.
Compared to a
tent, which has to be replaced every three to four years, the unit's
life span is expected to be up to seven years. And the price of about
$1,000 per unit makes it more economical, Deriche said.
"It's
not a permanent structure and we are not establishing camps by any
stretch of the imagination," Kelley said, adding that the unit would be
only one of several shelter options for the agency to use.
A
prototype of the prefabricated house designed by the Swedish furniture
manufacturer IKEA has been sitting in the front yard of UNHCR's Beirut
headquarters for a month.
The agency has been
lobbying Lebanese officials for permission to try out 15 units over a
period of six months before they can be deployed, but so far to no
avail. UNHCR also intends to test the units in climate conditions of
northern Iraq and in Ethiopia, Deriche said.
Lebanese
officials say the historic connotation of a tent for refugees, let
alone a housing unit, weighs heavy on the nation that is still reeling
from the devastating 15-year civil war. The Syrian fighting has
frequently spilled over into Lebanon over the past two years, deepening
tensions between pro- and anti-Syrian politicians, who have been unable
to form a new government since the prime minister resigned in March.
"There
will be no camps and family shelters, wooden or pre-fabricated,
whatsoever in Lebanon," said Maleeb, the government official.
Anything
to do with the Syrian refugees, he added, is "a big political decision,
and one that cannot be taken by a caretaker government."
---
Associated Press correspondent Diaa Hadid contributed to this report.
---
Follow Barbara Surk at www.twitter.com/BarbaraSurkAP .
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