The Chatila camp has been home to Palestinian refugees for 57 years.
Credit: UNRWA/M. Nasr |
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Chatila refugee camp in south Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, was set up by the International Committee of the Red Cross to host thousands of Palestinian families displaced in 1948, when the state of Israel was established. After almost six decades, Chatila looks more like a town than a temporary refuge.
Palestinian refugees fall under the aegis of the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and are not covered by the mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which was created in 1951. About three million Palestinians are registered with UNRWA.
For the last 57 years the residents of Chatila have been restricted by a legal status that prevents them from truly settling, and a political status quo that prevents them from returning to what they still consider home.
Bassam Hobaishy works with the Palestinian Human Rights Organisation (PHRO), a Beirut-based non-governmental organisation. Although his mother and wife are Lebanese, his father is Palestinian, so Bassam has no legal right to inherit from his parents and neither does his daughter.
From 1975 to 1990 the refugees had to cope with the 15-year civil war that divided Lebanon, during which a violent assault on the settlement led to many civilian deaths. Most of these were Palestinians, but around a quarter were Lebanese families who had moved into the camp because of economic constraints. Children's murals painted on bullet-pocked walls depict American and Israeli bombs being dropped on Chatila.
Chatila’s run-down infrastructure.
Credit: UNRWA/M. Nasr |
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In a total of 15,000 residents, the camp is "home" to 12,235 Palestinian refugees, according to UNRWA figures. The stagnation of their status nourishes a deep feeling of despair; scepticism towards aid programmes prevails.
"They just come, take what they want and forget about you," said Chaled, a middle-aged Palestinian father of two who has spent most of his life here, after his 19-year old daughter, Issa, participated in a 1998 documentary film on children's access to education in the camp.
He felt the filmmakers could have done more for her, and believes 10 years of collaboration with relief workers and the media have done nothing to improve his situation: "I know I will die [in Chatila], but I was hoping my daughters would have a better life", he said.
The head of the youth centre expressed similar concerns: "We have been here since 1948, and only now that we are overcoming our terror and sadness, people come to ask how it feels to be in our position. You cannot imagine what it is to be questioned about your loss when we are just starting to forget. And what did they bring us? Nothing has changed, no wonder more and more children take drugs", he said. Pharmacies sell amphetamines and codeine, an opiate, over the counter.
In Chatila, only the residents are uprooted - the infrastructure betrays a long-term perspective. Originally set up as an enclosed space for temporary settlement, the camp covers one square kilometre, on which families were given plots to occupy.
Education is a major concern for refugees living in Chatila.
Credit: UNRWA/H. Haider |
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It has become a small town where concrete buildings, to which stories are gradually added, are separated by overcrowded, winding alleys. Pharmacies and small grocery stores have opened, there is a youth centre, a Palestinian Red Crescent centre, and UNWRA runs a health centre and two elementary schools.
The temporary nature of the camp is emphasised by its lack of proper sewerage system, with open drains where children play, its poor water purification system, poor water and energy distribution, and generally poor environmental health.
The recently elected Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, himself a former refugee, has stated his intention to push for progress on the question of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
In the meantime, Chatila remains the "temporary" home of thousands of people.
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