In the peripheries of cities across the Levant, the realities of refugee camps are tucked away neatly. Overcrowded tents, low-hanging electrical cables, and restricted resources make for hazardous conditions; children raised within the parameters of the Zaatari camp in Jordan or Burj Al-Barajneh in Lebanon are adults now, having only ever existed within the only environment permissible to those who fled their land long ago.
These camps are also shared with others who have fled war or persecution in later years, creating a hodgepodge of displaced people left behind in the wake of global crises. The sustainability and trajectory of these camps were called into question last year, at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. The sense of urgency beckoned immediate answers: if a country is only as strong as its weakest member, what were the inevitable ramifications of these camps on the state of affairs of their host country?
Most Palestinian refugee camps are assisted by international organizations rather than the state itself. Resources are collected and distributed by such organizations, most notably UNRWA, rendering the camp’s residents reliant on their services and facilities, most of which are underfunded and overstretched. With limited access to the job market which often pushes these residents to work in exploitative and unprotected industries, their prospects as equal citizens in their host country are slim. The camp’s inhabitants are also restricted in their ability to buy or rent property, which is at the discretion of their employment. Additionally, educational opportunities are typically reserved for nationals, therefore exacerbating the refugees’ dependence on humanitarian organizations and volunteerism. Healthcare clinics operate under austere measures and outdated tools, illustrating the fatality and vulnerability of a population whose lives are in the hands of forces beyond their control.
The list of injustices encountered in these spaces becomes twofold as residents are integrated into the host country’s social fabric without provisions for their rights. The children of these camps who have known no other home but their host country will continue to exist as second-class inhabitants without the legal documentation needed to migrate elsewhere. During a time when the Lebanese national identity was at the forefront of the wider political discussion, COVID-19 acted as the great equalizer, demonstrating the effects of negligence and dismissal on the overall safety of the country. As expected, these considerations did not conclude with moral lessons for host states and their officials during vaccination roll-out plans.
The vulnerability of these communities should be a time for reckoning with the futures of these camps in their host countries. For Lebanon in particular, a national vision requires confronting its refugee crisis in a manner that absorbs the inhabitants’ skills and expertise rather than expelling them with no regard for their safety, should they return to their home countries. The late Samir Kassir, a Lebanese intellectual of Syrian and Palestinian origin, spoke extensively on a national vision that embraces these communities; his words still ring true today at a time where the country’s economic crisis has depressed Lebanese citizens of all classes and religions. For many living in the country’s refugee camps, such conditions-food costs, electrical outages, and diminishing institutions-have been a lived reality for decades.
This suffering is not exclusive to citizens, but one that unites the entire country behind a common demand for dignified lives. Reimagining a future in Lebanon, or all other host states, requires communal and collective thinking that excludes none. The absence of such considerations only reinforces the very divisions that have long inflicted the region in its denial of responsibility towards the non-Lebanese communities that have long inhabited the country and served its land and its people. As Lebanon looks forward, it must learn from its past; shutting the vulnerable out of its path towards a liberated society free of corruption and sectarianism will only exacerbate the roots of its demise.