The screams of children echo from the upper floors of the Saint-Joseph church, in the Achrafiyé district of Beirut. In one room, the mattresses are installed on the floor. The building, which belongs to the Jesuits, has become a shelter for migrants trapped by the Israeli offensive launched against Lebanon on September 23. after a year of low-intensity war on the border between Hezbollah and the army of the Jewish State.
In 2023, the United Nations International Office for Migration registered some 160,000 migrants in Lebanon, 65% of whom are women. They lived in the houses of their employers, in a system of dependency (the kafala), or alone, often having lost their legal status, in poor neighborhoods. The heavily bombed southern suburbs of Beirut – a vast residential area and Hezbollah stronghold – offered affordable housing before the war. Some of these foreign workers were forced to flee their homes in exposed areas or were abandoned by their employers. Daily life has taken a stunning turn.
“The war broke everything”
Overnight, the Jesuits saw an influx of immigrants seeking safety. The building houses more than seventy men and women, including families with children, from Africa and Asia. “I loved our life in Nabatiyé, in the South. The war broke everything. We fled from terrifying bombings. “I am very afraid for the child I carry in my womb.”, murmurs Malaz (who, like most of the people quoted, did not want to give her name), a 28-year-old Sudanese woman, eight months pregnant.
Tears run down her face. The exhausting sound of an Israeli drone – the surveillance machines do not leave the Beirut sky – breaks the silence. “I had my own house, in the southern suburbs. There is fear and danger there. She worked as a nanny and cleaner for a family during the day, but they too are displaced because of the bombing. I don’t have a job anymore. I only have here to stay”describes Patimat, a 50-year-old Sri Lankan who speaks poor Arabic.
“Normally, the migrant community – coming from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, South Sudan, etc. – finds a space in our parish on Sundays. We open an emergency shelter [pour ces travailleurs étrangers]because they are not included in the government’s response to the displaced »explains Michael Petro, project director of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). The authorities favor Lebanese in public schools transformed into reception centers, which are overcrowded. According to Beirut, the war has displaced 1.2 million people.
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