Mike Noyes, CAFOD’s Head of Humanitarian Programmes, writes from Lebanon, where CAFOD partners are working to help refugees of the Syria crisis.
My week in Beirut working with CAFOD’s church partners from Syria and Beirut is at and end and I’m heading back to London for Easter with the family.
A doctor from Caritas Lebanon treats a refugee from Syria earlier this year. As part of Caritas International, we have local partners in almost every country in the world.
In the Bekaah valley I met with Syrian women who had arrived with their children from Homs only two weeks ago, part of the wave of refugees that has grown massively in the past few months. They had literally fled with only the clothes on their backs and now live in a makeshift shelter on some farmland close to the main road between Damascus and Beirut. The horror of the experiences that drove them to leave will remain with me for a long time. One woman, in respect of the mourning tradition which means she cannot meet men from outside her immediate family for three months after becoming a widow kept her back to me and her face covered the whole time. Her husband was killed when their house was struck by a shell last week.
Caritas Lebanon is providing support such as food, soap and nappies to these new arrivals until they can be registered for official aid through the United Nations – a process which can take up to three months so fast are numbers growing. They’re also helping them navigate the bureaucracy of the system and find out what they’re entitled to. Its office is crowded every day with new arrivals, mostly black clad women in long robes and head scarves, happy to receive what help they can get but wishing there was more.
I also met with aid workers from the Church in Syria. They are providing health care and medicines for vulnerable people who have fled to Damascus in search of safety only to find themselves caught up in the conflict again. These brave young men and women reported how essential drugs for people with chronic diseases like diabetes or blood pressure and becoming hard to find and unaffordable, and how they sometimes have to cancel planned home visits to the displaced families they support because the fighting is too close. They are preparing to return to Syria after our discussions, to continue their work with those they serve. I respect their courage and commitment.
My week ended on a spiritual note, as befits Holy Week, attending Maundy Thursday mass celebrated by Father Simon Faddoul, President of Caritas Lebanon in his parish in the Beirut suburbs. We had met earlier in the day to discuss his work with refugees and how CAFOD can increase our support.
His large, airy church of St Michael, was overflowing, with a congregation that included many families and many young people. Mass, in the Maronite tradition, was sung in Arabic, although the consecration is in ancient Syrian, the language of Jesus’ time. Whilst I was largely able to follow the structure of the service, a few familiar stages appeared in unfamiliar places, the sign of peace at the offertory and bidding prayers before the Our Father. It was a peaceful end to an essential and very moving visit.
Latest posts
