Fierce Lebanon storm highlights plight of Syria refugees

Emma Gatten | Special for USA TODAY

BEIRUT— Heavy rain set in Tuesday as Lebanon braced itself for the full brunt of a winter storm that threatens thousands of Syrian refugees living in makeshift homes across the country.

The full fury of the storm, named Alexa, is expected to hit early Wednesday and last through the weekend, with heavy snow and fierce winds expected across the north and the mountainous Bekaa region, two of the most heavily populated refugee areas.

Lebanon is home to over 800,000 Syrian refugees, about 40% of whom are living in tents, half-finished buildings, garages or collective shelters such as schools, as the country of 4 million struggles to cope with the influx across the border.

There are 100,000 refugees living in about 450 tented settlements across the country, with half in the Bekaa area. The dwellings,

ill-equipped to withstand flooding or snow, consist of plastic or canvas sheeting supported by wooden structures. Most have no heating and no formal sanitation, leaving them vulnerable to flooding, as well as the spread of raw sewage during heavy rains.

Shams el-Ibrahim, a 19-year-old refugee from Damascus, had hoped to move with her eight brothers and sisters and her parents from their tented settlement in the Bar Elias area of the Bekaa to an unfinished basement shelter on Tuesday, but feared reprisals from the landlord.

Instead they bought more wood and plastic sheeting to reinforce the shelter, which they weighted down with stones, and turned their cooking stove into a makeshift fireplace.

"Now we are sitting here around the fire and praying to God that he will protect our tent and family," she said as heavy rains began to pummel the tent.

Wael Abou Faour, Lebanon's social affairs minister, says the ministry and other aid agencies are taking steps to protect refugees from the weather, including handing out plastic sheeting and wood planking to those living in tents, according to Agence France-Presse.

Marion McKeone, a spokeswoman for Save the Children, said the organization was working "flat out" to prepare people for the storms, and had been distributing winter preparation kits to over 200 families a day.

"A lot will depend on what happens in the next few days," she said. "The storm is an unknown quantity. A lot of the settlements, especially in the Bekaa, are vulnerable to flooding. Everything people own could be destroyed. People could find themselves in a situation where they have to start again.

"We can take all the preventative measures possible, but it is very likely that shelters will be destroyed."

The United Nations and other aid agencies have held a targeted campaign over recent weeks to distribute winter equipment including plastic sheeting, blankets, heating fuel and other items to refugees.

"The Bekaa Valley can be surprisingly cold. The weather conditions are very harsh especially when it snows," said Lisa Abou Khaled, of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

"Tented settlements and collective shelters are the worst type of shelter" for this weather, Khaled added.

While Lebanon has maintained an open border policy toward those fleeing from neighboring Syria, refugee camps remain a controversial issue -- in part due to Lebanon's experience with Palestinian camps during its civil war. The government has so far declined to create official camps for Syrians like those in Jordan. Meanwhile, competition for shelter has driven up rent.

"The biggest challenge in the Bekaa is shelter," said Khaled. "We're always trying to find empty buildings and structures that we can transform into collective shelters. We are seeing many residents of tented settlements who used to rent apartments earlier in the conflict, but now cannot afford to do so."

The Lebanese government announced Tuesday that public and private schools would be shut Wednesday because of the storm. Heavy rainfall last week flooded many of the country's main roads, while storms last year left at least five people dead. The poor weather this winter has forced additional cuts to the country's already insufficient electricity supply, while the country's Landlords Association said many old buildings across the country were at risk of collapse during the storm.