Families fill classrooms in Lebanon as spiraling displacement strains aid effort
Families fill classrooms in Lebanon as spiraling displacement strains aid effort
Syrian refugees Saddam Smadi, his wife Hajar and their daughter Jana sit in a classroom in a school in Tripoli that has been converted into a collective shelter for displaced people.
The high-pitched sound of children’s voices echoes through the corridors of the Bir Hassan School compound near Beirut’s beachfront, but they are not here to learn. The classrooms that held lessons up until last Monday 2 March are now filled with families who fled their homes to escape Israeli airstrikes.
Across Lebanon, displacement has surged in response to intensified bombardments and evacuation warnings for densely populated areas in Beirut’s southern suburbs, southern Lebanon and parts of the Bekaa valley. According to government figures, over 822,000 people have registered as displaced as of 12 March, though the true number is likely higher as many families are staying with relatives, in private accommodation, or are still on the move.
The school is one of over 600 government-designated collective shelters across the country, currently hosting more than 128,000 displaced people. People here arrived with little besides a few personal belongings grabbed in the rush to flee – children’s toys, pet birds in small cages, schoolbooks and pencils.
Among them is Fadi Merhi, 58, who had spent most of his life in Germany before returning to Lebanon some months ago. Shortly after he returned, he lost his leg after being seriously injured in a drone strike on a car in the street where he was standing, in Tebnine in the south of the country. When the attacks intensified on 2 March, he fled to the Bir Hassan School compound, which now hosts over 2,500 displaced people.
Despite his own challenges, Fadi spends his days trying to keep spirits up among the other residents of the college.
“Many people here feel overwhelmed,” he said. “If I can make someone smile, even for a moment, it helps all of us. I sold everything in Germany, cashed in my pension and came back to Lebanon to spend my retirement among my family and friends here, only to get caught in this madness.”
Sitting at a desk in another classroom, Abir carefully stuffs and rolls vine leaves to feed her relatives. The 52-year-old grandmother fled Beirut’s southern suburbs a week ago with several members of her extended family.
“I left with nothing,” she said. “My son managed to go to our apartment in Dahyeh [in Beirut's southern suburbs], today to bring what we had left in the fridge. Cooking for my family here helps me feel, even for a moment, like I am still at home.” Some of the displaced are fasting as they observe the holy month of Ramdan, while others have been forced to forgo their fast due to the upheaval.
Abir, 52, stuffs vine leaves in a classroom at a school in Beirut where her family is living after fleeing their home.
Across the country, nearly 90 per cent of the collective shelters are already at full capacity. Many displaced families remain with relatives or sleep in cars and public spaces because they have not yet found safe accommodation.
At another shelter in Rafic Hariri High School in the Zokak el-Blat neighbourhood of the capital, families sleep side-by-side in crowded classrooms or in tents pitched in the playground. Around 1,600 displaced people are currently living in the school.
Throughout the afternoon, the school bell continues to ring on a timer to mark the end of class periods that no pupils can currently attend. For the families sheltering here, the sound is a stark reminder of every passing hour they are forced to spend far from their homes.
Yahya Assaf, 59, who fled an airstrike near his neighbourhood, now shares a small tent with his wife, sons and three grandchildren.
“When they hear explosions, I tell them it is fireworks for a wedding,” he said of his grandchildren. “I try to protect them from the fear and ugliness we are experiencing.”
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is supporting the government-led response alongside national authorities and humanitarian partners. Since the escalation began, UNHCR has assisted more than 66,000 displaced people across over 300 collective shelters, delivering some 178,000 emergency relief items, including mattresses, blankets, solar lamps and jerry cans.
But as displacement increases and is prolonged, the needs are rising rapidly. With shelters nearly full and aid stocks being quickly depleted, humanitarian actors’ capacity to reinforce the Government-led response is under severe strain. Currently, UNHCR’s operation in Lebanon is only 14 per cent funded.
As well as safeguarding civilian lives and ensuring humanitarian access and assistance to all in need, more international support is urgently required to ensure families forced to flee receive the protection and assistance they desperately need.
In Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest city in the north of the country, more than 155 kilometres from the south, another collective shelter hosts families who have fled, including Syrian refugees displaced by previous bombardments in 2024. Among them are Saddam Smadi, his wife Hajar, and their three children, who were living in Kfar Sir, Nabatiyeh, in the south of the country before the recent escalation forced them to flee once more.
Mohamad Smadi, 17, was briefly separated from his family after they fled their home, before reuniting at a collective shelter in a school in Tripoli, Lebanon.
They have returned to the same school shelter in Tripoli where they sought safety in 2024. “We came back because we felt safe here,” Saddam explained. The journey north took around two days, for what is normally a two-hour trip. The family was separated along the way, crammed into different vehicles because there was not enough space for everyone. One of their teenage sons, Mohammad was left behind for hours on the street trying to reconnect with them, without a phone or a way to charge it. Eventually, the family reunited at the shelter.
Mohammad, 17, who works installing solar lighting, says life has never been easy, but the hardest part now is the uncertainty. “All I wish for now is for my family to stay safe.”
