BHANNINE, Lebanon (AP) – He was cluttered and agitated in the kitchen of Aisha al-Abed, as is often the first day of Ramadan. The food was supposed to be on the table at exactly 19:07, when the sun goes down and ends quickly throughout the day.
What is traditionally a jovial celebration of the beginning of the Muslim holy month around a hearty meal has been turned off and discouraged for her small family of Syrian refugees.
While the two-year-old mother, 21, was working with her young daughter on the trailer, memories of life’s hardships were everywhere: in the makeshift kitchen, where she crouched on the ground to cut cucumbers next to a gas stove with a single burner. In their house: a tent with a concrete floor and wooden walls covered with a tarpaulin. And certainly in their table iftar – rice, lentil soup, french fries and a bath of yogurt-cucumber; her sister sent some chicken and fish.
“This will be a very difficult Ramadan,” al-Abed said. “This should be a better meal … After a day of fasting, more body food is needed. Of course, I feel defeated. â
Ramadan, which began on Tuesday, comes as the resettlement lives of Syrian refugees have become even more difficult amid the economic problems of their host country. The fight may be more pronounced during the holy month, when fasting is usually followed by holidays to fill an empty stomach.
“High prices kill people,” said Raed Mattar, al-Abed’s 24-year-old husband. “We can fast all day and then fast only on one onion,” he said, using an Arabic proverb that is usually meant to convey disappointment after much patience.
Lebanon, home to more than 1 million Syrian refugees, is in turmoil over an exacerbated economic crisis by a pandemic and a massive explosion that destroyed parts of the capital in August last year.
Citing the impact of worsening crises, a UN study said the proportion of Syrian refugee families living below the extreme poverty line – the equivalent of about $ 25 a month per person based on current black market rates – has risen to 89% in 2020, compared to 55% the previous year.
More people have resorted to reducing the size or number of meals, he said. Half of the Syrian refugee families surveyed suffer from food insecurity, up from 28% at the same time in 2019, he said.
Refugees are not alone in their pain. The economic turmoil, which is the culmination of years of corruption and mismanagement, has gripped Lebanese, plunging 55 percent of the country’s 5 million people into poverty and shutting down businesses.
As jobs became scarce, Mattar said more Lebanese competed for low-paying jobs, construction and sanitation, previously left largely to foreign workers like him. Wages lost value as the local currency, pegged to the dollar for decades, collapsed. Mattar went from getting the equivalent of over $ 13 a day to less than $ 2, about the price of a pound and a half (about 3 pounds) of unsubsidized sugar.
“People are kind and helpful, but the situation has become disastrous,” he said. “The Lebanese themselves cannot live. Imagine how we handle it. â
Nerves tear. Mattar was among hundreds displaced from an informal camp last year after a group of Lebanese set him on fire following a fight between a Syrian and a Lebanese man.
It was the fifth trip for al-Abed’s young family, who returned mainly from informal settlements in northern Lebanon. They had to move twice afterwards, once a Lebanese landowner doubled his rent, telling Mattar that he could afford it because he was receiving help as a refugee. Their current tent is in Bhannine.
This year, the Syrians marked the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the war turned into a civil war in their country. Many refugees say they cannot return because their homes have been destroyed or they fear revenge, either because they have been considered an opposition or for evading military recruitment, such as Mattar. He and al-Abed each fled Syria in 2011 and met in Lebanon.
Just before the start of Ramadan, Rahaf al-Saghir, another Syrian from Lebanon, worried about what his family’s iftar would look like.
“I don’t know what to do,” said the widowed mother of three daughters recently. “Girls keep saying they crave meat, chicken, biscuits and fruit.”
As the family’s choices diminished, her daughters’ questions became more heartfelt. Why can’t we have chips like our neighbors’ children? Why don’t we drink milk to grow as they say on TV? Al-Saghir remembered that she burst into tears when the youngest asked her what the strawberry she saw on TV tasted like. She later bought them, using money from UN assistance, she said.
For Ramadan, al-Saghir was determined to stop her daughters from seeing photos of other people’s iftar tables. “I don’t want to be compared to others,” she said. “When you fast during Ramadan, you crave many things.”
The beginning of Ramadan, the first since al-Saghir’s husband died, brought tears. Her eldest daughters were accustomed to their father waking them up for suhoor, the meal before dawn before the fast of the day, which he prepared.
A few months before he died – of cardiac arrest – the family moved into a one-bedroom apartment shared with a relative’s family.
This year, their first iftar was simple – french fries, soup and fat salad. Al-Saghir wanted chicken, but decided it was too expensive.
Before the violence took them out of Syria, Ramadan felt festive. Al-Saghir cooked and exchanged visits with family and neighbors, gathering around tasty and sweet food.
“Now, there is no family, no neighbors, no sweets,” she said. “Ramadan feels like any other day. We may even feel more sad. ”
In the midst of her struggles, she turns to her faith.
“I keep praying to God,” she said. “May the answer to our prayers in Ramadan and our situation change. … To open a new path for us. â
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Fam reported from Egypt. Associated Press journalist Fay Abuelgasim contributed from Bhannine.
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