BAR ELIAS, Lebanon (AP) – Mohammed Zakaria has lived in a plastic tent in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon for almost as long as the war has raged in his native Syria.
He and his family fled bombing in 2012, thinking it would be a short, temporary stay. His hometown, Homs, was under siege and subject to a fierce Syrian military campaign. He didn’t even bring his identity with him.
Almost 10 years later, the family has not yet returned. Zakaria, 53, is among the millions of Syrians who are unlikely to return in the foreseeable future, despite facing deteriorating living conditions abroad. In addition to his displacement, Zakaria now struggles to survive Lebanon’s financial collapse and social implosion.
“We assumed that we would go in and out,” said Zakaria, sitting outside his tent on a cold day recently, while his children walked around in shabby slippers.
Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, when Syrians revolted against President Bashar Assad amid a wave of uprisings in the Arab Spring. The protests in Syria, which began in March of that year, quickly turned into an insurgency – and eventually a complete civil war – in response to a brutal military crackdown on Assad’s security apparatus.
Nearly half a million people were killed and nearly 12,000 children died or were injured in the conflict in the past decade, according to the UN children’s agency, UNICEF. The conflict also resulted in the biggest displacement crisis since World War II.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said this week that, since the start of the war in 2011, some 2.4 million people have been displaced each year in and out of Syria. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians face continuous displacement each year the conflict continues and economic conditions deteriorate.
The war left Syria divided and in ruins. Almost a million children were born in exile.
Of the country’s pre-war population of 23 million, almost 5.6 million are refugees living in neighboring countries and Europe. Some 6.5 million are displaced within Syria, most of them for more than five years.
Lebanon, a small Mediterranean country with a population of around 5 million, hosts the highest concentration of refugees per capita, estimated at around 1 million. Most of them live in makeshift and informal tent camps spread across Bekaa, Lebanon, not far from the border with Syria.
A former loader for a Homs construction company, Zakaria finds it difficult to support his family, although she continues to grow in Lebanon. He has two wives and eight children, including two born in Lebanon. One of his children was just a year old when the family fled Syria.
In Lebanon, it is difficult to find jobs, as an economic and financial crisis is plaguing the country. Financial assistance is scarce and irregular. A currency crash caused inflation and prices to skyrocket. Zakaria is now trying to survive by selling gas canisters used as heaters to other refugees in his settlement.
He earns 1,000 Lebanese pounds (about 10 cents) for every gas cylinder he sells. But this winter, its neighbors in the settlement, which is home to some 200 Syrian refugee families, have barely managed to buy enough gas to heat their tents.
Through the unprecedented economic crisis, Lebanon ‘s currency has so far lost more than 80% of its value.
“Life is expensive here,” he said. “It is so expensive even for medicine or doctors.”
When his wife needed urgent eye surgery, Zakariya arranged for her to be smuggled back to Syria to do the surgery there. The surgery would cost 22 million Lebanese pounds – about $ 2,200 at the current market price. They managed to do so in Syria for 85,000 Lebanese pounds ($ 850).
Zakaria said he feels great sadness for his three youngest children, who have no memories of Syria and their home in Homs. They also did not go to school and do not know how to read and write.
According to UNICEF, almost 750,000 Syrian children in neighboring countries, including Lebanon, are out of school.
“All of our memories are gone now,” said Zakaria, watching his children run, playing hopscotch. Two dirty stray cats are his playmates.
“Now we have a generation – 10 year olds are a new generation,” he said. “I have small children and … they don’t even know our neighbors” at home.
Many Syrians are unable to return because their homes were destroyed in the conflict or because they fear military recruitment or retribution from government forces.
Zakaria hopes that one day he will return to his home.
“God willing, we will die in our country,” he said. “Everyone should die on their own.”