A day with the volunteers of “Dove Operation”, one of the Lebanese terminals of the humanitarian corridor system promoted by the Community John XXIII.
Often divided, both Lebanese and Italian volunteers of the various development cooperation projects of the country, agree on one thing: without the humanitarian corridors of the Community of Sant’Egidio and the Valdese Church, life would be much worse than what it already is.
Among projects present on the territory that allows identifying who to bring to Italy, is “Dove Operation”, an initiative supported by the John XXIII community of humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
It is not difficult to get to them in the Akkar district, a place of extreme poverty in northern Lebanon. The once very busy road, tight between skyscrapers and giant-sized advertising that took through a jungle of concrete and asphalt from Beirut to Tripoli becomes increasingly poorer, crowded with carts and old engines, among houses that at every kilometer loose a floor until they are just miserable huts.
Donkeys, makeshift means of transport, unpaved roads, sudden pits, unexplained traffic jams, follow one another in a melancholic procession to Halba, where one must turn to the countryside and reach Tel Abbas, Abbas Hill, where a field that used to grow potatoes marks an unmarked border, just five more miles to get to before Syria. Until some time ago those five miles were scattered with refugee camps, until, one early morning, the army dismantled them all. All of them. The potato field where I arrived hosts thus the closest camp to the Syrian border.
I got there thanks to Caterina, a young volunteer coming back from Italy on that same day. Without her, it would not have been easy to recognize the farmhouse where once potatoes were grown, and where now people are waiting for a future that never seems to come. We arrived just hours away from an “emblematic” death. The victim’s name was Amal that in Arab means Hope. She was 4 years old. As four were the number of years her mother and older brothers spent in this tiny field, inside a wooden shack covered with plastic. Amal went unnoticed by her mother, to play with the many impulsive and hasty boys of the camp, who took her with to the fields. Amal died, drowned in a nearby cesspit, a septic tank that collects the sewage of the camp and which, by chance had been left open.
But who died that day? Amal was born there, shortly after her family fled the country, she is not registered, like all her family, she is not Lebanese, she is not Syrian: Amal did not exist for the world four years ago when she was born as the day she died. The recent tragedy of the 4-year-old child, Hope, found dead, drowned in a black pit, does not stop many of her peers from surrounding in a sort of besiege anyone arriving, including Catherine and I. Catherine, with a fluent Arabic, caressed them, then invited them to go to a nearby place that sort of looked like a playground.
I was then able to reach Alberto Capannini, who has been managing this program for years. As I entered his tent I felt like I couldn’t breathe; he was on the phone, and as I looked around I realized why I suddenly didn’t perceive the asphyxiating heat anymore. I was elaborating what he was saying over the phone. For weeks now, he has been taking care of a 13-year-old boy, a Syrian refugee, who suffers from a severe form of leukemia. His story perfectly matches the surrounding reality, but clashes with the reality of someone with a serious medical condition who is trying to be transferred to Italy, to the Gaslini hospital, and have his life saved, maybe.
There is an agreement with the hospital, but it needs a name for the patient. He has it, of course, his name is Mussab, but he fled his country without documents. He is here with his mother and brothers. But why did they run away? Because their father died. He was tortured to death in a Syrian prison. It is an ordinary fact, but dying from torture does not leave any evidence, there are no witnesses, and does not come with a death certificate. So the reasons that pushed Mussab and his family to run away are not certified along with their identity. It was not easy to come to terms with it, but they managed to until another problem emerged: If Mussab manages to survive, who will take care of him once out of the Italian hospital? Lebanon? He is not Lebanese ... Syria? And end up like his father?
“If you look at the macro instead of the micro you give up. Taking care of him, of Mussab, is our duty. Our talk of love on “the edge of the abyss”, like the title of that novel, that at first seemed so trivial to me, but then, once I came here, I understood... However, here, there is a whole population on the edge of the abyss, with us. I’ll say it again, if you look at the macro, not the micro, you lose yourself; you end up giving up ... “Alberto Capannini faces problems on a daily basis, he doesn’t decide what to by looking at the size of each problem.
Because every problem he deals with has a face and a story, almost always an incredible story. And problems never ease, they get worse.
“Since 2015 there is a new law. In this country - that with the outbreak of Palestinian refugee camps has never wanted refugee camps for the Syrians - the High Commissioner for Refugees can no longer record by identifying refugees, but can only issue a number. To sleep in these kinds of camps costs $ 30 a month, the rates change for renting out a garage, then for a residence permit it’s $ 200 a year, for a work permit – valid only in the construction and agriculture field- $ 900 a year granted that there is a Lebanese sponsor willing to sign for warranty. Under these conditions, it is easy to understand that the unregistered can’t be just a few”.
In fact, compared to the one million and two hundred thousand Syrians registered by the UNHCR in Lebanon, real attendance, according to most analysts and newspapers, exceeds two million. And the Lebanese are just over three million, maybe four. “The humanitarian corridors are for us an ointment, a manna from heaven. It is the only weapon we have to tell these people: do not get on those boats! “Capannini says.” Every day, there are at least two ready to go from the port of Tripoli. The figures I heard were of about 4 or 5 thousand dollars to reach Europe. The driver of the boat? I’ve heard that sometimes it was himself a refugee with no money, they put the helm in his hand and say, “Keep straight, for at least eight hours...”. I remember as if it were yesterday when Cesare from the Community of Sant’Egidio arrived. Since that first encounter, the anxiety I was feeling had an antidote, at least partial, despite the job being long with over eight months of meetings and technical research on so many problems.”
What convinces Caterina “is the idea of welcoming for a definite period of time” According to her, “ Such system allows parishes, individuals, and communities to design a true welcoming process aimed at the social and working integration of these people, who will then find a way to make a living.”
“In this perspective - continues Alberto Capannini - evening classes in Lebanese schools for Syrian children are fundamental. They have been open for a year. No one really studied before, there were only self-managed classes in each camp, with occasional teachers chosen among the refugees who might had this job before fleeing. Of course, the school-bus problem remains very serious considered that not everyone can afford to pay it, but the step forward is unquestionable.”
The story of Mussab is not over yet: he was supposed to leave with two of his brothers, the one who will give him the marrow, who is also a minor, and the only one over 18 of the family. More details, more problems, but for Alberto time has a name and it’s “the survival of a boy named Mussab.” After a phone call at the Embassy, we talked about the day they managed to empty the camp without scattering the small community of about forty families, by putting everyone in the humanitarian corridors. Then we talked of the day when the army cleared all the refugee camps from Tel Abas to the Syrian border, making this one the last camp before hell.
After a conversation with Rome to define the purchase of airline tickets prior however of having any confirmation from the Lebanese authorities, we talked about when winter comes, and temperatures drop to four degrees below zero while the tents stay the same. Or the day when the refugees of Tel Abbas and surrounding areas managed to get to Geneva a proposal of peace written by those who are still in Syria and do not wish to be lifelong aspiring refugees.
“Refugees have started coming here since 2012, then the flow has increased, it actually never stopped: do you have any idea how many children were born since they left Syria? Lebanese hospitals are full of Syrian women who give birth, but none of these births is recorded. And this problem sooner or later will explode! Who are they, where were they born, what is their nationality? Will they all be stateless! A people of stateless people, often children of refugees without registration nor documents, a population born abroad that cannot return home!”
The words of a friend I bumped into while returning to Beirut summed up pretty well this day spent at the end of the world, where a shadow-people is born. He told me about his mother, who wanted to stay is Aleppo when he fled, and now tells of his younger brothers, who five years ago could not escape with him, and how they never leave the house because they are too scared. Now they all live off their mother’s $ 40 monthly earning, and yet, over the phone she asks my friend to take care of himself and to avoid danger.
As I enter my hotel room I realize that was about to forget E. a Christian who is seldom seen in Tel Abbas. One of his acquaintances wanted me to meet him, but he was not there yet and I had leave for Beirut to avoid traveling at night. It was then that he came close to me and said, “He could have explained better than me why here misery, despair and ignorance are paradoxically logic; many Lebanese people, who are poor, give us the evil eye because we are many, and because we are Syrians, that is, citizens of a country that has invaded Lebanon for decades. Is not this a paradox? Syria kicks us out and we become its representatives. However, it is not the only paradox. There are also those among the Syrians who give E. the evil eye because he is Christian and most probably a friend of the regime. The don’t know that E. wanted the revolution as his dearest friend did, who died from torture in jail, not to reveal where E. was hiding. But his death has been buried by millions of other deaths, in this abyss where every paradox becomes normal, like the presence of your Italian friend who lives here among us because she believes we are human beings as well. “
