LEBANON: Lebanese NGO Ikram and Syrian doctors have launched an initiative to provide medical care for Syrian refugees in the north, by setting up a makeshift clinic in almost each camp

Record ID: 274570

  • Title: LEBANON: Lebanese NGO Ikram and Syrian doctors have launched an initiative to provide medical care for Syrian refugees in the north, by setting up a makeshift clinic in almost each camp
  • Date: 30th April 2014
  • Summary: TRIPOLI, LEBANON (RECENT) (REUTERS) TENTED SETTLEMENT WHERE SOME SYRIAN REFUGEES ARE STAYING VARIOUS OF SYRIAN REFUGEE CHILDREN EATING ICE CREAM IN FRONT OF A TENT MORE OF SYRIAN REFUGEES BETWEEN TENTS CLINIC TENT SYRIAN REFUGEES GATHERING INSIDE CLINIC TENT (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) FATME AYYASH, NURSE FROM IKRAM NGO, SAYING: "Concerning the Syrian refugees, when we saw we
  • Embargoed: 15th May 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVABUVD7MY54T6X59VB1DQGUZACO
  • Story Text: Syrian refugees fleeing the violence in their country are facing difficult living situations away from home. In neighbouring Lebanon, where Syrians have no official camps to stay in, many of the refugees living in informal tented settlements are being subject of health problems.
    One Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), Ikram Association, has taken a lead in helping those Syrian refugees in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli as much as they can. Self-funded, workers from Ikram are co-operating with Syrian doctors and nurses, who themselves were displaced because of the events in Syria, to help fellow refugees who need medical assistance.

    "Concerning the Syrian refugees, when we saw we are receiving a big percentage of scabies, many patients come full of scabies with no one taking care of them, in addition to diarrhoea and vomiting, we came up with an idea with Syrian nurses and doctors to take a tent in each camp - as much as we can, not really in every single camp - take a tent and offer services almost for free, they pay a very small fee because we buy most of the medicines, we don't have a support from any part. So we opened tents and offer medical services as much as we can, if there are cases that need centres or tests, we guide them," one of the nurses from Ikram, Fatme Ayyash, told Reuters.
    Ayyash was treating mostly children in her tent. Many of her patients are grateful but not hopeful of the situation in Syria.

    "I came roughly when the events started in Syria. I am from Aleppo and it is almost three years, my child here is now almost three-years-old. Thank God, God willing as the proverb goes, aid is not cut from us, thank God, everything is fine," said Jomaa Al-Mohammed, a refugee from Aleppo.
    And while Jomaa said he had received sufficient aid to keep him going, another refugee, Abou Mohammed, told Reuters no one was taking care of them but the medical team he had just visited.

    "There is no one but the doctors who are coming to help Syrian refugees a little, no others,... no one is helping the refugees at all," Abou Mohammed said.
    Aid might not be reaching everyone, Abou Mohammed said, especially with new refugees arriving daily at the informal camps Syrians are living in.

    "Yes, it is increasing, in one week about ten tents with about ten people inside," he said.
    The number of Syrian refugees who have fled to Lebanon officially topped one million at the beginning of April 2014, highlighting the growing humanitarian catastrophe caused by Syria's civil war and the huge burden placed on its poorly prepared neighbours.
    In April 2013, two years after the Syrian crisis erupted, there were 356,000 refugees in Lebanon. That number has nearly tripled in the past 12 months.
    With a population of just four million, Lebanon now has the highest per capita concentration of refugees world-wide, an influx which the government has described as an existential threat in a country scarred by its own volatile history.
    Some believe there are nearly twice as many unregistered refugees exiled from Syria.
    Syrians have also fled to Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt, and the official total of 2.6 million refugees - which understates the scale of the exodus - means Syrians will soon overtake Afghans as the world's biggest refugee population.
    Many millions more have been displaced inside Syria, and the pace has only accelerated in the last 12 months.
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