A man holds a child, walking through the ashes of a Syrian refugee camp destroyed in a fire, near Zahleh, April 22, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — A Syrian refugee camp near Zahle was burnt to the ground Monday afternoon in a massive fire, the cause of which is still unknown, leaving almost 500 people without a home. Civil Defense managed to extinguish the blaze, which destroyed Hamed al-Hassan refugee camp, around 2:30 on Monday afternoon, more than an hour after the fire broke out.
No one was injured in the fire, although a few people fainted from shock. All that was left of the 6,000-square-meter camp was debris and some plumes of smoke, rising from embers left behind in the fire’s wake. Its former residents wandered through the charred remains, looking for belongings, to no avail.
A little girl stands among the ashes of a Syrian refugee camp destroyed by fire, near Zahleh, April 22, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient Today)
"The fire was large and spread rapidly due to the temperature and the wind," a local Civil Defense official, Fayez al-Sheiyeh, told L’Orient-Le Jour. Petrol and rubber stored in some shelters fueled the flames, which spread quickly due to the proximity of the camp’s tents to each other. According to Sheiyeh, an investigation is being launched into the cause of the fire.
The camp had been completely evacuated of its residents, Sheiyeh said, who were being cared for by NGOs and the UN High Commission for Refugees. The humanitarian organization is also in the midst of carrying out a census to determine whether anyone was left behind.
A UNHCR staff member said that in the event of a disaster at an informal camp such as Hamed al-Hassan, the UN organization "coordinates with the relevant authorities, such as the mohafez, and other partners, to come to the aid" of those affected.
The High Commission establishes a "collective" shelter to temporarily house victims of the fire who are unable to find refuge with relatives. "We don't know if they'll be able to rebuild for the time being,” the staff member said.
Short circuit?
"Everything went up in flames," a man from the camp told OLJ. He believes the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit.
“We don't know where to go. We no longer have a home — neither here nor in Syria,” says the man who wished to stay anonymous amid rising aggression towards Syrian nationals in Lebanon. He’s from the Aleppo region and has six children all under the age of fourteen.
According to another resident of the camp, a man in his thirties, when the fire broke out, some Lebanese people came and taunted the double-displaced Syrians, laughing at them and taking pictures as they stood watching their homes reduced to ash.
A Syrian refugee camp destroyed by fire, near Zahleh, April 22, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient Today)
"We've been humiliated, we'll have to sleep in the street,” he says, worried that he won’t be able to return to a rebuilt camp, because “everyone wants us to be evacuated.”
At a shop near the refugee camp, a Lebanese woman denies that the fire was deliberately started by Lebanese, a suspicion raised amid increasing violence by Lebanese against Syrians in the last weeks. "We don't do things like that, even though we put up with a lot," she said. She hopes, however, that the camp will not be rebuilt, believing that the camp's inhabitants were "far too many.”
According to Zahra, the refugee camp’s coordinator, 480 people were living in the tents. She explains that she searched the ashes for "anything, steel or anything else ... but there's nothing left.”
She says she’s ready to rebuild on the spot, but in the meantime, she and her young children are spending the night with relatives.
Mohsen al-Zein, a farmer who is in charge of operating the land, also wants to see the camp rebuilt “as quickly as possible.”
He stressed that he has “no problem” with the almost 500 people seeking refuge on his land. “We’ll see how we can help.”
This article originally appeared in French on L'Orient-Le Jour. Translation by Amelia Hankins.