By Hu Dandan
TRIPOLI, Lebanon, May 25 (Xinhua) -- In a corner of a classroom in northern Lebanon's Beddawi refugee camp, 50-year-old Ibrahim el-Hag Mohammed huddled with his wife and daughter on two mattresses, staring in a vacant gaze as this Xinhua reporter stepped into the crowded makeshift shelter.
The couple, along with their eight children, are among the 16,000 refugees who fled the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp outside Tripoli in northern Lebanon, which had become a battle ground between the Lebanese army and the Fatah al-Islam militants who are based there.
The battle, starting from Sunday, had killed at least 80 till a ceasefire reached between the two sides on Tuesday night. Many residents then fled the camp, most of whom went to the Beddawi camp 15 km away.
Since most of the refugees left their houses without taking anything besides the clothes they were wearing, they had to be completely reliant on others, either relatives and friends in Beddawi or relief agencies.
"We have no money, no shelter, no shower. My baby has no milk, no diaper," deplored a woman who gave her name as Feddie, holding her 20-day-old baby.
"All of us are sleeping together on the mattresses on the floors," she added.
In a ward in the Safad hospital in Beddawi, the only established hospital in the two camps, 20-year-old girl Rahan, who was treated there for shrapnel wounds, recalled the fighting with anger and pain: "A bomb fell on our house when we were leaving our house. When I regain my consciousness, I found my father dead and my mum in a coma."
In another room, 12-year-old Youssef Abu Radi, who was struck by shrapnel, lay in bed crying quietly, while his father and a sister looked all worried besides his bed. A doctor later said the boy was severely wounded in the waist and might not be able to walk properly ever again.
"We lost everything overnight. Before that (the conflict) I worked in a hospital as a nurse, and I think Lebanon welcomed we Palestinians, but now, I don't know what will happen," Mohammed told Xinhua.
Asked about his plan for the future, he said: "I don't know my fate, or those of my families. I am so afraid, I don't know what to do. Now we are living on the mercy of the others."
He is talking about a fear that Lebanon, which is now in an economic and political shambles because of the rivalry between warring factions and last year's Israeli-Hezbollah war, would blame the Palestinian refugees for the unrest as Fatah al-Islam isled by a Palestinian refugee.
The fear is not groundless. Though Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Seniora has repeatedly promised that Lebanon would protect its "Palestinian brothers," some had long blamed the presence of some 350,000 Palestinians, most of whom Sunni Muslim, for having changed the country's fragile sectarian balance.
Most of the Palestinian refugees came in Lebanon in two waves after the 1948 and 1967 wars between the Arabs and Israel. Now over half a century has past, most of the Palestinian refugees still do not have citizenship in the host country, though the younger generations are born in Lebanon and have never seen their home country.
What's more, Palestinians are restricted in some vocations in Lebanon.
"We have been living here for 60 years, we have no proper work, no dignity and the entire world knows that," said a Palestinian biochemist who declined to give his name, adding "we just want the right to survive."
However, maybe children are the only people who are still able to run gleefully and laugh. In the new shelter, they seemed to be free from the fear of gunfire and shell rounds and be able to play with their friends day and night as they are all rounded up together. When they saw this reporter's camera, some jumped up, vying to pose for pictures.
Looking fondly into the picture of his son on the camera, a father at the age of some 30 told Xinhua that "we are rational people now, after so many years of conflicts. We don't want any war. If possible, I will do anything to emigrate to any country where my children can grow up happily and safely. "
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