Noura Ahmad Hamzeha 45-year-old Syrian born and settled in the south of Beirut, sums up the blow her family is experiencing in one sentence: “We have been sleeping on the street for a week”. He left home at dawn, in the midst of chaos, afraid for the children and not knowing if his home was still standing.
Since then, sleep next to the sea, on a concrete promenade, with thin, open mattresses. The worst thing, he says, is not just having fled. It means doing it as a Syrian and verifying that the schools do welcome displaced Lebanese, but not them.
The scene that Noura describes portrays a double vulnerability. On the one hand, that of those who escape; on the other, that of those who also carry the weight of nationality. While other families have been able to take shelter under roofs or set up tents, she and her family remain outside. “The Lebanese have tents. But we are Syrians”he explains. In the middle of Ramadan, food arrives thanks to solidarity distributions, rice, salad, manuscript and yogurt. There’s not much more.
An early morning escape with no clear destination
Noura lives in Hay al-Salloumin the south of Beirut. Her daughter, who lives in Nabatieh, arrived home with her husband and children after also escaping the violence. But not even that family reunion gave them security. Around three in the morning on Monday, They heard heavy shelling. The children burst into tears. Fear prevailed and they ran.
There was no plan. Nor a closed destination. Just the urge to get out. Noura stopped an unknown driver in the middle of the street to leave the neighborhood as soon as possible. He put them in the car without asking for money. From there, another form of exposure began: that of not knowing where to go.
For a week, she and her family have been sleeping under the open sky, next to the sea, with hardly any protection against the night cold. They have mattresses, but no stores. They have food that volunteers distribute, but not temporary housing. And they have a question they can’t answer: What has happened to your house since you fled?.
Being displaced and also being Syrian
Noura’s testimony has one point that weighs more than any other: the difference in treatment. It speaks not only of destruction or fear, but of unequal access to aid. To be able to see it with your own eyes. Schools open to displaced people do not accept them because they are Syriansdenounces.
That phrase changes the focus of the story. Already It is not only a family trapped by war, but a family also trapped by their refugee status.. In Lebanon, where thousands of Syrians who fled the war in Syria have lived for years, precariousness can multiply in a matter of hours when a new crisis breaks out. Noura tells it bluntly: some have a store; They don’t. Some enter the shelters; They don’t.
Thus, everyday life is reduced to the basics. Eat. Protect children. Try to sleep. Wait for news. And look at your cell phone with anxiety. “I don’t know what happened to my house. I haven’t been there since I fled. I don’t know if it’s still standing.”he says regretfully.
Ramadan in the street and a very simple idea: live in peace
There is another detail that runs through his entire story: the heartbreak of celebrating Ramadan away from home. Noura does not speak in political terms, but in human terms. Family Shared table. Of normality. “Of course, it is much better to break the fast at home, eat together”regrets.
His testimony connects with something that is repeated in other voices in the region: fatigue. The feeling that war destroys material things first, but then also devours routine, work, calm and the very idea of the future. Noura doesn’t ask for anything extraordinary. He asks for the same thing as anyone: a safe house, a place to be with his loved ones and a stable life.
There is a phrase that leaves little room for interpretation: “Whether Muslim or Christian, everyone wants to be together, have a safe and secure home. “We just want stability.”
And perhaps that is the hardest part of its history. That their aspiration is not to return to a better life, but simply to return to a normal life. Sleep indoors. Stop running. Stop looking at the sky with fear. Stop being a foreigner even when you are also a victim.
