ReliefWeb

The forgotten people

The list of challenges Palestinian refugee families living in Lebanon face is long and overwhelming.
They live in overcrowded camps and have to deal with discrimination, isolation and social exclusion.

The refugees often refer to themselves as “forgotten people” and feel they are living in a hostile environment where their basic human rights are not represented or protected. Caught in the middle of an unsettled political conflict beyond their control, they manage to survive with limited resources and a restricted legal, economic and social system.

The Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are considered the worst of the region’s refugee camps in terms of poverty, health, education and living conditions. Families crowded into what was designed as “temporary housing” have to cope with open channels of sewage and rotting piles of garbage, which make conditions ripe for the spread of disease. But there are few clinics and hospitals to treat the sick. A tangle of electrical wires hang dangerously low over narrow, unlit alleyways, within reach of children playing there.

With staggering rates of joblessness, Palestinian families trying to improve their lives in Lebanon face restrictions and complicated formalities in the labor market.