Humanitarian, Living Conditions Aggravate in Lebanon’s Palestinian Camps

Humanitarian, Living Conditions Aggravate in Lebanon’s Palestinian Camps

The human relief agency at the Arab Doctor’s Union visited a number of Palestinian camps in Lebanon to follow up their living conditions. There are 400 thousand Palestinians distributed among 12 camps all over Lebanon.
 
The Palestinian camps in Lebanon are facing many difficulties on the social, educational and health levels. They lack the simplest living rights, where poverty is widespread, there is no infrastructure, and the camps are overpopulated with a full negligence to the aging. Unemployment is widespread among the youth who account for 35% of the Palestinian population in the camps. Students are cramped in schools in a way that hinder appropriate methods of teaching. This may others to leave education altogether, leading to an illiterate generation that only adds to queues of the jobless.
 
Economically, due to the fact that the camps are just residential blocks that lack any firms, businesses or even farming lands, the Palestinian refugees depend mainly on working in shops, clinics, pharmacies or working in a Lebanese factory or institution. The remaining option for them is to travel to a Gulf country to work there.
 
After the outbreak of the second Gulf war, the resources supporting the Palestinians stopped specially after Oslo accords and the Lebanese legislations that treated the Palestinians as foreigners, restricting jobs to the Lebanese and excluding the Palestinians. This led to a huge economic deterioration in the Palestinian camps.
 
On the health level, the Palestinian camps are witnessing declining health conditions in a way that presages an imminent environmental and health disaster. Clinics lack many drugs and medicines add to this the huge demand and lacking many specializations like otolaryngologists, Urinary Tracts, psychiatrists, and doctors for the newly born infants. Most clinics only provide a general practitioner, a pediatrician and gynecologist.
 
There are also aggravated health risks and environmental pollution due to open sanitary and the accumulated wastes around the camps.
 
The 40000 residents of Nahr Al-Bared camp were evacuated to the already overcrowded Al Bdawi camp, presaging a health disaster for the displaced due to the over-crowdedness and in availability of even main factors for a decent daily life plus the difficult psychological circumstances already facing these displaced persons.
 
Asked about the situation in the Palestinian camps, Dr. Gamal Abdul Salam, the manager of the relief committee at the Arab Doctors’ Union, said in a statement to Ikhwanweb:
 
The Palestinian camps in Lebanon are experiencing very tragic living conditions. People live in streets, alleys, schools, classrooms and garages. I saw 6 families living in a class room. This after they opened schools for them to live. 20000 displaced from the Nahr Al-Bared camp who came to Al Bdawi camp which barely shelters its twenty thousand residents make it impossible to adequately and decently live in such misery.
 
Abd Al-Salam points out for example one of the displaced fled Nahr Al-Bared to Al Bdawi with only his shirt and trousers that he was wearing. A woman gave him some of her husband’s clothes so as to help him at least change his clothes..!!
 
Abd Al-Salam adds that there is a disaster on the ground in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon. Millions of pounds are spent on renovating zoos although people need this money. It is good to take care of animals but Allah said “We honored mankind”. Solidarity and support are required for those who were displaced from their houses. All the Arab Nation should work for improving the situations of the Palestinian camps.