Wind is pounding the camps where Syrian refugees live in the Lebanese town of Arsal, straining tent walls held down by concrete blocks.
Inside, where flimsy cardboard walls shake and ripped tent sheets billow, the roar of the wind only multiplies in the small rooms where families live.
A predominantly Sunni Muslim town that sits in the hills and mountains that border Syria, Arsal lies almost in a rocky crater, surrounded by hills that show the remnants of winter snow.
It is a bleak scene at the best of times, but the reportedly 77,000 refugees there — they make up about two-thirds of Arsal’s residents — are living through a difficult Ramadan.
Regardless of which of the many scattered camps they live in, the story is the same: a slashing in aid and financial support and the wider economic crisis in Lebanon, among a litany of other issues, have worsened the situation.
Abu Ali Rifai, a leader in one of the Arsal camps, has been without gas for days as he struggles to pay for expenses including rent and water transport.
“We still haven’t figured what’s going to be for Iftar tonight. We’re not sure what to cook — we cannot cook,” he told The National.
“We were just talking about it, but we didn’t get the chance to even think about it. Because even before thinking about what to eat, we are thinking about what to do with the tents that have been falling apart because of the wind. Since the morning, we’ve been occupied with that,” said Mr Rifai, who has been in Lebanon for 12 years and is from the Qalamoun mountains.
Given the lack of food, he fears some children in the camps are becoming too skinny and risk malnutrition. Many are relying on mainly bread diet, the price of which itself is increasing amid the rampant inflation in Lebanon.
“My child was asking me what are we eating today? I told him I didn’t get a chance to think about it yet because of the tent issue. What can I tell a child asking me what to eat?”
His story is similar to many in Arsal’s refugee camps, where there always seems to be problems.
Last autumn cholera broke out in the camps, while skin infections are increasing.
Flooding is common, and families are forced to burn unsuitable and potentially dangerous materials to stay warm as the cold lingers high up in the mountains.
UN agencies said that about 90 per cent of Syrian refugee families in Lebanon need assistance to survive.
Lutfi, the leader of another Arsal camp, said people are rationing or rely on each other.
This comes amid the background of the ever present rhetoric from some in Lebanon who resent the presence of Syrian refugees. The latter number more than one million in the country of about six million.
Mahmoud Youssef said he fled his home country for safety but now finds himself in a worse situation in Arsal.
The camp was recently flooded with sewage, while one tent was destroyed by the wind.
Mr Youssef has a wound on his head from a tent collapsing on him as he tried to fix it. He complains about the increased cost of buying water.
“What can we say? There’s no food to eat, no water to drink,” he said with tears in his eyes.
“I don’t have food to eat during Ramadan,” said Mr Youssef, who has been in Arsal since 2014.
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This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
The team
Videographer: Jear Velasquez
Photography: Romeo Perez
Fashion director: Sarah Maisey
Make-up: Gulum Erzincan at Art Factory
Models: Meti and Clinton at MMG
Video assistant: Zanong Maget
Social media: Fatima Al Mahmoud
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
Pathaan
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Siddharth%20Anand%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Shah%20Rukh%20Khan%2C%20Deepika%20Padukone%2C%20John%20Abraham%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
Ziina users can donate to relief efforts in Beirut
Ziina users will be able to use the app to help relief efforts in Beirut, which has been left reeling after an August blast caused an estimated $15 billion in damage and left thousands homeless. Ziina has partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to raise money for the Lebanese capital, co-founder Faisal Toukan says. “As of October 1, the UNHCR has the first certified badge on Ziina and is automatically part of user's top friends' list during this campaign. Users can now donate any amount to the Beirut relief with two clicks. The money raised will go towards rebuilding houses for the families that were impacted by the explosion.”
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
MATCH INFO
Liverpool 0
Stoke City 0
Man of the Match: Erik Pieters (Stoke)
Wayne Rooney's career
Everton (2002-2004)
- Appearances: 48
- Goals: 17
Manchester United (2004-2017)
- Appearances: 496
- Goals: 253
England (2003-)
- Appearances: 119
- Goals: 53
Dolittle
Director: Stephen Gaghan
Stars: Robert Downey Jr, Michael Sheen
One-and-a-half out of five stars
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MATCH INFO
AC Milan v Inter, Sunday, 6pm (UAE), match live on BeIN Sports
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
