War worsens poverty in Lebanon

TYRE – Things were bad enough for Youssef Ali Moussa and other Palestinian refugees in south Lebanon before a month-long war between Israel and the Hezbollah Shiite militia.

Now their plight is even worse as rising unemployment and inflation add to their poverty, United Nations relief workers and the refugees themselves say. In one sense Moussa is lucky.He is one of the few refugees with a job, as a casual labour in the orchards around this southern coastal city.At 70 years old, he still works to support the six people in his household, a responsibility that entails a deadly new risk since a ceasefire took effect on August 14.The fields where he must work are littered with unexploded munitions from the war.”There’s a great danger, if you want I can take you there and show you,” he says.”Many others are afraid to enter the fields…I am the sole bread winner so I am obliged to work.”Ahmad Abdo Yunis, 47, and his neighbour Nizar Khadduj, 36, are also casual farm labourers who say their job prospects are even more limited now because of the unexploded cluster bombs and other munitions.Officials involved in clearing the explosives say they have found close to 400 cluster bomb sites in south Lebanon and at least 60 people have been killed or wounded by the weapons.”We are looking for orchards and fields that don’t contain unexploded rockets, which is rare,” Yunis says at the home of his brother in Burj el-Shemali, a Palestinian refugee camp in Tyre.”The unemployment rate in this camp reaches about 90 per cent,” says Khadduj.Samir Nhar Khadduj, Nizar’s brother, fears the problem of unexploded munitions will push unemployment even higher among the refugees.The Lebanese government prohibits Palestinian refugees from many kinds of work, leaving part-time labour as one of the few options, they say.The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which provides health, education and other services to refugees, agrees that unemployment and poverty have worsened since the war and said the agency was seeking additional funds to step up economic and social assistance.UNRWA spokesman Paul McCann said refugees who were “already chronically poor” before the war were now in even worse shape.”There’s no foreseeable option, particularly in the south, for employment,” he said.”It’s going to be a long time before people can earn any money.”UNRWA noted that Moussa and other labourers could not work during the 34-day conflict, forcing them to rely on emergency food handouts and what little cash they had available, while prices climbed.Moussa says his family ate rotten bread during the fighting, when the camp was without electricity and shells crashed along the edge of the compound.”During the war and after the war, prices rose,” Samir Nhar Khadduj says.”Most of our lives we have lived in debt,” his brother adds over a cup of Arabic coffee served in a home with bare grey cement walls.Moussa says he earns 10 000 Lebanese pounds, or seven dollars, for a day’s work in the orchards.It is not enough to feed his family but helps to maintain his pride.”To get 10 000 pounds is better than asking people to help me and being like a beggar,” he says.UNRWA says Burj el-Shemali’s roughly 17 000 residents are the poorest of those in the three Tyre-area camps.The agency says as many as 25 000 other Palestinian refugees live outside the official camps in the south.Opened in 1955, Burj el-Shemali is no longer a collection of tents but a small village of simple, tightly-packed homes.It has schools and a clinic run by UNRWA, as well as stalls that sell food, a barber, and other small shops.hildrens’ voices fill narrow alleyways winding through the complex, which is adorned with pictures of the late Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat.And while the war may have worsened their lives, the refugees still call it a victory over Israel.”We had many casualties during this war but we are victorious,” says Moussa.Nizar Khadduj says the only way the refugees’ lives will improve is to find a “comprehensive solution” to the problem of the Palestinians who fled their homeland after the creation of Israel in 1948.”And if this happens most of the problems in the Middle East will be resolved immediately,” he says.Then, Moussa would like to leave Lebanon’s treacherous orchards and return to the land he fled as a boy.”I hope not to die except in Palestine,” the elder man says.Nampa-AFPIn one sense Moussa is lucky.He is one of the few refugees with a job, as a casual labour in the orchards around this southern coastal city.At 70 years old, he still works to support the six people in his household, a responsibility that entails a deadly new risk since a ceasefire took effect on August 14.The fields where he must work are littered with unexploded munitions from the war.”There’s a great danger, if you want I can take you there and show you,” he says.”Many others are afraid to enter the fields…I am the sole bread winner so I am obliged to work.”Ahmad Abdo Yunis, 47, and his neighbour Nizar Khadduj, 36, are also casual farm labourers who say their job prospects are even more limited now because of the unexploded cluster bombs and other munitions.Officials involved in clearing the explosives say they have found close to 400 cluster bomb sites in south Lebanon and at least 60 people have been killed or wounded by the weapons.”We are looking for orchards and fields that don’t contain unexploded rockets, which is rare,” Yunis says at the home of his brother in Burj el-Shemali, a Palestinian refugee camp in Tyre.”The unemployment rate in this camp reaches about 90 per cent,” says Khadduj.Samir Nhar Khadduj, Nizar’s brother, fears the problem of unexploded munitions will push unemployment even higher among the refugees.The Lebanese government prohibits Palestinian refugees from many kinds of work, leaving part-time labour as one of the few options, they say.The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which provides health, education and other services to refugees, agrees that unemployment and poverty have worsened since the war and said the agency was seeking additional funds to step up economic and social assistance.UNRWA spokesman Paul McCann said refugees who were “already chronically poor” before the war were now in even worse shape.”There’s no foreseeable option, particularly in the south, for employment,” he said.”It’s going to be a long time before people can earn any money.”UNRWA noted that Moussa and other labourers could not work during the 34-day conflict, forcing them to rely on emergency food handouts and what little cash they had available, while prices climbed.Moussa says his family ate rotten bread during the fighting, when the camp was without electricity and shells crashed along the edge of the compound.”During the war and after the war, prices rose,” Samir Nhar Khadduj says.”Most of our lives we have lived in debt,” his brother adds over a cup of Arabic coffee served in a home with bare grey cement walls.Moussa says he earns 10 000 Lebanese pounds, or seven dollars, for a day’s work in the orchards.It is not enough to feed his family but helps to maintain his pride.”To get 10 000 pounds is better than asking people to help me and being like a beggar,” he says.UNRWA says Burj el-Shemali’s roughly 17 000 residents are the poorest of those in the three Tyre-area camps.The agency says as many as 25 000 other Palestinian refugees live outside the official camps in the south.Opened in 1955, Burj el-Shemali is no longer a collection of tents but a small village of simple, tightly-packed homes.It has schools and a clinic run by UNRWA, as well as stalls that sell food, a barber, and other small shops.hildrens’ voices fill narrow alleyways winding through the complex, which is adorned with pictures of the late Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat.And while the war may have worsened their lives, the refugees still call it a victory over Israel.”We had many casualties during this war but we are victorious,” says Moussa.Nizar Khadduj says the only way the refugees’ lives will improve is to find a “comprehensive solution” to the problem of the Palestinians who fled their homeland after the creation of Israel in 1948.”And if this happens most of the problems in the Middle East will be resolved immediately,” he says.Then, Moussa would like to leave Lebanon’s treacherous orchards and return to the land he fled as a boy.”I hope not to die except in Palestine,” the elder man says.Nampa-AFP