Refugees bitter over camp rebuilding plans
Güncelleme Tarihi:
AFP
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Şubat 11, 2009 00:00
NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon - Two years after the devastated battles between the Lebanese army and the al-Qaeda-inspired extremists, Palestinian refugees in Nahr al-Bared camp are frustrated over a tight-budgeted reconstruction plan.
Ibtisam Ghneim clearly remembers the day she fled, barefoot and empty-handed, from her home in the devastated Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon during fighting in 2007. Ghneim is one of thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled the Nahr al-Bared camp during heavy clashes between the Lebanese army and the Islamist militant group Fatah al-Islam that killed some 400 people.
Two years after fierce battles reduced Nahr al-Bared to rubble, the refugees are growing bitter over a tight-budgeted rebuilding plan, which aims at placing the camp under the control of the Lebanese government for the first time.
Leaving without nothing
Under a longstanding arrangement, the 12 Palestinian refugee camps in the country are off-limits to Lebanese authorities and are policed by armed Palestinian factions - despite a U.N. resolution calling for the disarmament of all militias in the country.
"I fled the camp with my children and grandchildren three days after the fighting. I did not even carry identification papers or money," Ghneim, 45, told AFP. "We once owned warehouses and shops, making tens of thousands of dollars a day. Now, we are left with nothing but the revenues of a small shop." Like many in the camp, home to 31,000 U.N.-registered Palestinian refugees, Ghneim's father-in-law Mohammed Atiyeh is frustrated.
"If they wanted to rebuild the camp they would not have destroyed it in the first place," said Atiyeh, 75, who described himself as an "unemployed merchant."
"I hardly managed to get a few thousands dollars to renovate my house and buy some appliances for my shop, even though I have lost more than a million dollars."
A major reconstruction operation by the Lebanese authorities and the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is to kick off later this month to rebuild a "model camp," according to the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, or LPDC, a government focal point in the reconstruction effort.
"The rebuilding plan is the result of a partnership between UNRWA, the Lebanese state and the Palestinian Authority," said LPDC advisor Ziad Sayegh. "We seek to build a model camp that would provide a minimum standard of decent living for the Palestinians under the state's sovereignty and authority." UNRWA has appealed for $ 450 million for the rebuilding, which is scheduled to be completed in around three years. So far it has raised around $ 120 million. "We do need more resources to rebuild the camp but that doesn't mean we are not going ahead with it," said Charlie Higgins, UNRWA's project manager. "At a certain point in the middle of this year if we don't receive any more resources or funding we will stop and the process will be delayed."
’Empty promises’
A Lebanese naval base will be set up at the edge of the camp despite strong opposition from the resident refugees who view this as a "form of restriction" and point to the fact that the base would be located near schools.
"The base is necessary for monitoring all the northern coasts and combating trafficking... this is not a restriction," said Sayegh.
But the refugees, at least for now, view such plans as "empty promises."
"God's mercy is better than all their empty promises," Ghneim said.
For Hani Mustafa, a construction worker in the camp, the entire rebuilding project is nothing but a "lie."
"There will be no reconstruction. Don't believe this lie," he said bitterly.
Higgins argued that although he understood the skepticism of the dispossessed residents about rebuilding efforts, he remained confident the camp would rise from its ashes. "I do understand the difficulties they are facing... but they should not be too skeptical," he said. "We are definitely here to reconstruct the camp."
Two years after fierce battles reduced Nahr al-Bared to rubble, the refugees are growing bitter over a tight-budgeted rebuilding plan, which aims at placing the camp under the control of the Lebanese government for the first time.
Leaving without nothing
Under a longstanding arrangement, the 12 Palestinian refugee camps in the country are off-limits to Lebanese authorities and are policed by armed Palestinian factions - despite a U.N. resolution calling for the disarmament of all militias in the country.
"I fled the camp with my children and grandchildren three days after the fighting. I did not even carry identification papers or money," Ghneim, 45, told AFP. "We once owned warehouses and shops, making tens of thousands of dollars a day. Now, we are left with nothing but the revenues of a small shop." Like many in the camp, home to 31,000 U.N.-registered Palestinian refugees, Ghneim's father-in-law Mohammed Atiyeh is frustrated.
"If they wanted to rebuild the camp they would not have destroyed it in the first place," said Atiyeh, 75, who described himself as an "unemployed merchant."
"I hardly managed to get a few thousands dollars to renovate my house and buy some appliances for my shop, even though I have lost more than a million dollars."
A major reconstruction operation by the Lebanese authorities and the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is to kick off later this month to rebuild a "model camp," according to the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, or LPDC, a government focal point in the reconstruction effort.
"The rebuilding plan is the result of a partnership between UNRWA, the Lebanese state and the Palestinian Authority," said LPDC advisor Ziad Sayegh. "We seek to build a model camp that would provide a minimum standard of decent living for the Palestinians under the state's sovereignty and authority." UNRWA has appealed for $ 450 million for the rebuilding, which is scheduled to be completed in around three years. So far it has raised around $ 120 million. "We do need more resources to rebuild the camp but that doesn't mean we are not going ahead with it," said Charlie Higgins, UNRWA's project manager. "At a certain point in the middle of this year if we don't receive any more resources or funding we will stop and the process will be delayed."
’Empty promises’
A Lebanese naval base will be set up at the edge of the camp despite strong opposition from the resident refugees who view this as a "form of restriction" and point to the fact that the base would be located near schools.
"The base is necessary for monitoring all the northern coasts and combating trafficking... this is not a restriction," said Sayegh.
But the refugees, at least for now, view such plans as "empty promises."
"God's mercy is better than all their empty promises," Ghneim said.
For Hani Mustafa, a construction worker in the camp, the entire rebuilding project is nothing but a "lie."
"There will be no reconstruction. Don't believe this lie," he said bitterly.
Higgins argued that although he understood the skepticism of the dispossessed residents about rebuilding efforts, he remained confident the camp would rise from its ashes. "I do understand the difficulties they are facing... but they should not be too skeptical," he said. "We are definitely here to reconstruct the camp."