Two months after end of battle, Nahr al-Bared displaced still in limbo

BEDDAWI: Souad al-Sayyed still camps with her children in a classroom strung with washing lines, two months after the battle for Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in Northern Lebanon ended.

Despite the stench from the neighboring toilet and piles of rubbish in the corridors, Souad finds little comfort in the news that her time is up in her temporary home at a public school in Beddawi refugee camp, near the devastated camp.

"The school administration said they're moving us out tomorrow, but nobody told us where we're going," she said, cradling her 4-month-old son Hassan who was born during the army's three-month siege of Nahr al-Bared, ending on September2. Hassan's temperature is always high and he has sleeping and breathing difficulties, she said, blaming the baby's squalid surroundings.

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Two weeks after Palestinians started to trickle back to the "new camp" area of Nahr al-Bared, frustration is growing at what is seen as a slow pace of reconstruction and inadequate help. Anger is often directed at UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

"UNRWA is responsible for Palestinian refugees and should at least have ensured their basic needs when they returned. There's no electricity and only a little water, not enough for sanitation," said Beddawi camp resident Khaled Yamani, who is a humanitarian coordinator for the Nahr al-Bared Relief Campaign and other NGOs.

The challenge is vast. UNRWA estimates the battle between the army and Islamic militant group Fatah al-Islam destroyed or rendered uninhabitable as much as 85 percent of homes in the camp and ruined infrastructure. The camp's up to 40,000 residents were forced to flee, many of them sheltering in the already overcrowded Beddawi camp, 10 kilometers south.

At least 169 soldiers, 287 insurgents and 47 civilians were killed in the army's battle with the Al-Qaeda-inspired militants, which broke out on May 20 with a police raid on a suspected hide-out linked to the group. In response, Fatah al-Islam fighters overran an army checkpoint outside their base in Nahr al-Bared, killing 33 soldiers.

The camp remains off-limits to media and rights groups, but the view from the road outside is of ruins of buildings folding into each other like crumpled paper. Few appear to be standing.

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