Syria
'No Sweets': For Syrian refugees in Lebanon, a tough Ramadan
It was messy and hectic in Aisha al-Abed’s kitchen, as the first day of Ramadan often is. Food had to be on the table at precisely 7:07 p.m. when the sun sets and the daylong fast ends.
What is traditionally a jovial celebration of the start of the Muslim holy month around a hearty meal was muted and dispirited for her small Syrian refugee family.
As the 21-year-old mother of two worked, with her toddler daughter in tow, reminders of life’s hardships were everywhere: In the makeshift kitchen, where she crouched on the ground to chop cucumbers next to a single-burner gas stove. In their home: a tent with a concrete floor and wooden walls covered in a tarp. And, definitely, in their iftar meal -- rice, lentil soup, french fries and a yogurt-cucumber dip; her sister sent over a little chicken and fish.
“This is going to be a very difficult Ramadan,” al-Abed said. “This should be a better meal ... After a day’s fast, one needs more nutrition for the body. Of course, I feel defeated.”
Ramadan, which began Tuesday, comes as Syrian refugees’ life of displacement has gotten even harder amid their host country Lebanon’s economic woes. The struggle can be more pronounced during the holy month, when fasting is typically followed by festive feasting to fill empty stomachs.
“High prices are killing people,” said Raed Mattar, al-Abed’s 24-year-old husband. “We may fast all day and then break our fast on only an onion,” he said, using an Arabic proverb usually meant to convey disappointment after long patience.
Lebanon, home to more than 1 million Syrian refugees, is reeling from an economic crisis exacerbated by the pandemic and a massive explosion that destroyed parts of the capital last August.
Citing the impact of the compounded crises, a U.N. study said the proportion of Syrian refugee families living under the extreme poverty line — the equivalent of roughly $25 a month per person by current black market rates — swelled to 89% in 2020, compared to 55% the previous year.
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More people resorted to reducing the size or number of meals, it said. Half the Syrian refugee families surveyed suffer from food insecurity, up from 28% at the same time in 2019, it said.
Refugees are not alone in their pain. The economic turmoil, which is the culmination of years of corruption and mismanagement, has squeezed the Lebanese, plunging 55% of the country’s 5 million people into poverty and shuttering businesses.
As jobs became scarce, Mattar said more Lebanese competed for the low-paying construction and plumbing jobs previously left largely for foreign workers like himself. Wages lost their value as the local currency, fixed to the dollar for decades, collapsed. Mattar went from making the equivalent of more than $13 a day to less than $2, roughly the price of a kilo and a half (about 3 pounds) of non-subsidized sugar.
“People are kind and are helping, but the situation has become disastrous,” he said. “The Lebanese themselves can’t live. Imagine how we are managing.”
Nerves are fraying. Mattar was among hundreds displaced from an informal camp last year after a group of Lebanese set it on fire following a fight between a Syrian and a Lebanese.
It was the fifth displacement for al-Abed’s young family, bouncing mainly between informal settlements in northern Lebanon. They had to move twice after that, once when a Lebanese landowner doubled the rent, telling Mattar he can afford it since he gets aid as a refugee. Their current tent is in Bhannine.
This year, Syrians marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the uprising-turned-civil war in their country. Many refugees say they cannot return because their homes were destroyed or they fear retribution, either for being considered opposition or for evading military conscription, like Mattar. He and al-Abed each fled Syria in 2011 and met in Lebanon.
Even before Ramadan started, Rahaf al-Saghir, another Syrian in Lebanon, fretted over what her family’s iftar would look like.
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“I don’t know what to do,” said the recently widowed mother of three daughters. “The girls keep saying they crave meat, they crave chicken, biscuits and fruit.”
As the family’s options dwindled, her daughters’ questions became more heart wrenching. Why can’t we have chips like the neighbors’ kids? Why don’t we drink milk to grow up like they say on television? Al-Saghir recalled breaking into tears when her youngest asked her what the strawberry she was seeing on television tasted like. She later bought her some, using U.N. assistance money, she said.
For Ramadan, al-Saghir was determined to stop her daughters from seeing photos of other people’s iftar meals. “I don’t want them to compare themselves to others,” she said. “When you are fasting in Ramadan, you crave a lot of things.”
The start of Ramadan, the first since al-Saghir’s husband died, brought tears. Her oldest daughters were used to their father waking them for suhoor, the pre-dawn meal before the day’s fast, which he’d prepare.
A few months before he died — of cardiac arrest — the family moved into a one-bedroom apartment shared with a relative’s family.
This year, their first iftar was simple — french fries, soup and fattoush salad. Al-Saghir wanted chicken but decided it was too expensive.
Before violence uprooted them from Syria, Ramadan felt festive. Al-Saghir would cook and exchange visits with family and neighbors, gathering around scrumptious savory and sweet dishes.
“Now, there’s no family, no neighbors and no sweets,” she said. “Ramadan feels like any other day. We may even feel more sorrow.”
Amid her struggles, she turns to her faith.
“I keep praying to God,” she said. “May our prayers in Ramadan be answered and may our situation change. ... May a new path open for us.”
Pleas for more aid to Syria: 'We don't have nearly enough'
At age 19, Fatima al-Omar is at her wits’ end. In the last year alone, she lost her home to fighting in Syria’s last rebel-held enclave and her mother was diagnosed with cancer. She became the sole breadwinner for her mother, three siblings and grandmother as they moved around between shelters.
Then the coronavirus struck, aggravating conditions in northwest Syria just as new fighting had uprooted 1 million people — the biggest wave of displacement in the country’s 10-year war. By late 2020, al-Omar contracted COVID-19, costing her the last job she had picking olives. She hasn’t been able to find work since and is now at risk of another eviction.
“It was all difficult, but it just keeps getting harder,” al-Omar said, speaking by phone from the latest home she moved to in Binnish, a small town in rebel-held Idlib province.
Also read: 10 years on, Syria is a hungry nation
Despite the worsening humanitarian situation across war-ravaged Syria, it’s been getting tougher every year to raise money from global donors to help people like al-Omar. The aid community is bracing for significant shortfalls ahead of a donor conference that starts Monday in Brussels and is being co-hosted by the United Nations and the European Union.
Pledges were already dropping off before the coronavirus pandemic mainly due to donor fatigue. Officials fear that with the global economic downturn spurred by the pandemic, international assistance for Syria is about to take a new hit just when it is needed most. Earlier this month, a U.N. appeal for aid to Yemen, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, was less than 50% funded, in what U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called a disappointment.
Across Syria, the pandemic has compounded the worst economic crisis since the conflict began in 2011. The local currency has crashed and food prices have soared — increasing by 222% from last year. Nine out of 10 people live below the poverty line and in northwest Syria, close to three-quarters of the 4.3 million residents are food insecure.
According to the U.N., 13.4 million people in Syria, more than half the country’s pre-war population, need assistance. That’s a 20% increase from last year.
“We don’t have nearly enough money to provide all the services that are needed,” said Mark Cutts, the U.N. deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria.
“It is still just a struggle for survival for all these people and it is often the women, the children and the elderly and people with disabilities who are suffering most.”
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The U.N. and other aid groups are seeking more than $4 billion for aid within Syria at this year’s conference, their biggest appeal yet. Another $5.8 billion are requested for nearly 6 million Syrian refugees who fled their homeland.
Over the years, pledges have typically fallen short. The humanitarian appeal for 2020 was 45% below its $3.82 billion target — nearly a 14% drop from the year before.
“We fully realize that in donor countries there is also a COVID effect, that budgets are strained,” said Fillipo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees. “But clearly because of that same pandemic that has an effect on budgets, this is not the time to let go.”
In the rebel-held area, coronavirus pandemic restrictions have further slowed economic activity, closing schools and reducing trade and movement with Turkey — the enclave’s gateway to the world.
Women and children are being forced to find low-paying and risky jobs, including minors collecting trash, begging or being recruited by armed groups. Aid groups say reports of suicide attempts among young men and adolescents are on the rise.
One in three children are out of school, down from about 70% enrollment a year earlier, said Amjad Yamin, of Save the Children.
The World Food Program reduced its monthly food basket throughout Syria to stretch available funding and prevent a reduction in the number of people reached. That meant dropping calories from 2,100 per person to 1,264 — a 40% decrease. Some families said the rice ration in the basket has gone down by half.
Meanwhile, water needs have increased by 40% because of the pandemic, but funding has not kept up. In a letter shared with The Associated Press, local non-governmental organizations told donors that cuts could potentially force as many as 55 water stations across northwestern Syria to shut down, denying nearly 740,000 people access to water.
“The gaps are enormous,” said CARE International’s Tue Jakobsen.
Reports of anticipated aid cuts — as high as 67% by some of the largest donors — were leaked in emails or relayed in private meetings. Aid workers have tried to adjust budgets and plan for the reductions.
The cuts could also put thousands of people out of work and force a couple of displacement camps to close, the letter shared with the AP said.
It has already been a struggle for al-Omar and her family to get help.
Since her family lost their home, they have not received any food assistance, she said. Savings have been used to pay for part of for her mother’s cancer treatment. Charity and local donations financed the rest, including lengthy medical trips to Turkey. Cash assistance that has helped her pay rent is not guaranteed.
Al-Omar’s pantry, where she kept food reserves such as pickles and jams, is empty. “We have nothing. We have no water. No food,” said al-Omar, whose father abandoned the family 11 years ago. “We are below zero.”
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Al-Omar’s best job was working from home, sewing masks and earning about $7 for every 1,500 masks completed. It meant staying safe and looking after her siblings. But she lost it when she moved to Binnish where rent is cheaper.
A year into displacement, she dreams of a room in one of the camps for displaced people. “It would be better than all this moving,” she said. “This is exhausting.”
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