Elise Knutsen| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: At least one Syrian child died when a massive fire engulfed scores of tents in an east Lebanon refugee camp Monday, in the latest tragedy highlighting the poor humanitarian conditions under which around 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon live. Besides the death of the child, five adults suffered from smoke inhalation and were treated at a nearby hospital, several sources told The Daily Star.
The body of the toddler was transferred to the hospital morgue, according to a staff member at the hospital.
The camp is located in the Bekaa Valley town of Al-Marj, in the same town that an abandoned Syrian refugee camp burned down.
“It makes you so mad that you want to just run out into the street,” said Saleh, a Syrian refugee who lives in a nearby town and witnessed the raging fire in Al-Marj. When he arrived on the scene, residents of the camp were trying to douse the flames on their own. “But they needed a whole fire brigade” to put the fire out, Saleh said.
Members of the Civil Defense came, but they were too late to save the 10-month-old toddler.
A photograph Saleh shared with The Daily Star showed charred rubble where dozens of tents once stood.
According to UNHCR spokeswoman Tatiana Audi, the fire affected 80 tents. The municipality of Al-Marj is providing temporary accommodation to refugees whose tents were lost in the blaze.
UNHCR staff were still at the camp assessing the situation several hours after the fire erupted.
The organization is “identifying what is needed by the families” that were affected by the fire.
“We’re coordinating the distribution of different items,” Audi said.
The fire’s cause remains unknown. According to a Civil Defense source, the majority of Syrian refugees live in substandard, highly flammable tents.
“The tents are like gasoline; they catch fire very quickly,” the source said. “There are tents that won’t catch fire, but they’re expensive.”
The incident was the latest in a recent string of similar tragedies to befall the estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, many of whom live in overcrowded camps and run-down buildings. Last month, three Syrian children were killed when a fire broke out in their room at an apartment complex in the Zahle town of Barr Elias. In March, two Syrian children burned to death when a fire broke out in their house in Dohat Aramoun, south of Beirut.
According to Dana Sleiman of the UNHCR, informal refugee settlements have “no set standards and no presiding entity” and are often erected in dangerously haphazard ways. Because the settlements are often located on private property, Sleiman said there is little the UNHCR can do to ensure proper building standards are applied. “Despite our best efforts the situation in Lebanon generally, and for refugees living in tented settlements specifically, remains precarious given the conditions in which they live and the lack of proper standardization of settlements,” Sleiman said.