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UNHCR / SYRIAN CONFLICT ANNIVERSARY
STORY: UNHCR / SYRIAN CONFLICT ANNIVERSARY
TRT: 4:08
SOURCE: UNHCR
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT UNHCR ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ARABIC / ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 26 FEBRUARY 2021, GHAZIR, MOUNT LEBANON, LEBANON
1. Close up, Hala’s face fixing her daughter’s hair.
2. Wide shot, Hala fixing her daughter’s hair.
3. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Hala, Syrian refugee:
“Seriously I would love to close my eyes and open them and not find myself here.”
4. Med shot, Hala inside her kitchen making coffee.
5. Close up, Hala’s face.
6. Close up, Hala’s husband Yasser while they are drinking coffee in their house.
7. Med shot, Hala and her Husband Yasser while drinking coffee.
8. Close up, Hala’s face.
9. Wide shot, Yasser and Hala with their daughter looking at phone.
10. Close up, Hala and her daughter’s faces.
11. Close up, Hala’s daughter while sitting in her mother’s lap.
12. Med shot, Hala and her daughter.
13. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Yasser, Syrian refugee:
“That’s when the collapse started. One thing leading to another with the kids. Everything that I have done in the past 6 to 7 years, is gone. There is nothing left.”
14. Close up, Hala’s face.
15. Med shot, Hala looking outside the window.
16. Wide shot, Hala looking outside her window.
17. Close up, Hala looking outside her window.
18. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Hala, Syrian refugee:
“The situation is very difficult. We’ve been put through a lot of difficult circumstances. Talking about it is no longer useful. This affected our bodies, and we got sick, it got inside of us, the children were affected and depressed.”
19. Med shot, Amer, Hala’s son looking outside the window of their house.
20. Wide shot, Amer opening the window.
21. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Amer, Syrian refugee:
“I don’t know what to think and what the solution is…. the way I see my sisters and my parents, especially my mother, more than once she has tried to hurt herself, I did try one time too, to commit suicide, I went to the roof, of this building, my father followed me, I was going up and my feet, my body was almost outside the…, and my father grabbed me, so our situation is very harsh from all perspectives.”
22. Wide shot, Amer’s silhouette looking outside the window.
23. Close up, Amer’s face.
24. Med shot, Amer’s back looking outside the window.
25. SOUNDBITE (English) Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR Deputy Representative:
“Hala’s family is a really clear illustration of the daily emergency for survival. This uncertainty about how you are going to survive today, tomorrow and not even thinking about the week after, is a daily inner emergency that people are living through.”
26. Close up, Hala and her daughter.
27. Close up, Amer getting inside the shot to sit next to his mother.
28. Med shot, Hala gets close to Amer and kisses him for the first time in a while and cries.
As the Syria crisis reaches the 10-year mark, millions of refugees face unprecedented hardship due to rising poverty, lack of opportunities and the impact of COVID-19. 35-year-old Syrian refugee Hala described the downward spiral their lives have taken since fleeing the conflict in their home country and coming to Lebanon 10 years ago.
But as the crisis next door in Syria ground on year after year, Hala’s resources became increasingly stretched and the debts began to pile up. Hala’s three older children had to drop out of school, and her eldest son Ammer, 16, started working in a hair salon to supplement his father Yasser’s meagre income as a parking valet.
SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Hala, Syrian refugee:
“Seriously I would love to close my eyes and open them and not find myself here.”
Hala’s situation has sadly become the norm for families caught up in the world’s largest refugee crisis.
As the Syrian conflict enters its second decade, instead of getting easier, daily life for the 5.6 million refugees living in neighboring countries in the region is tougher than ever.
Poverty and food insecurity are on the rise, school enrollment and access to health care are shrinking, and the COVID-19 pandemic has wiped out much of the informal work that refugees rely on.
Lebanon’s financial crisis has sent the currency plummeting and prices of everyday basics shooting up. Combined with the devastating economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, this increased the share of Syrian refugees in the country living under the extreme poverty line to almost 90 per cent by the end of 2020.
SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Yasser, Syrian refugee:
“That’s when the collapse started. One thing leading to another with the kids. Everything that I have done in the past 6 to 7 years, is gone. There is nothing left.”
The family’s mental health has also suffered as a result of the situation, with Hala often spending days unable to get out of bed, and both her and her son Ammer experiencing suicidal thoughts.
SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Hala, Syrian refugee:
“The situation is very difficult, we’ve been put through a lot of difficult circumstances. Talking about it is no longer useful. This affected our bodies, and we got sick, it got inside of us, the children were affected and depressed.”
SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Amer, Syrian refugee:
“I don’t know what to think and what the solution is…. the way I see my sisters and my parents, especially my mother, more than once she has tried to hurt herself, I did try one time too, to commit suicide, I went to the roof, of this building, my father followed me, I was going up and my feet, my body was almost outside the…, and my father grabbed me, so our situation is very harsh from all perspectives.”
It is part of a wider pattern of increasing mental health issues among Syrian refugees triggered by prolonged displacement, the pandemic and declining economic conditions.
SOUNDBITE (English) Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR Deputy Representative:
“Hala’s family is a really clear illustration of the daily emergency for survival. This uncertainty about how you are going to survive today, tomorrow and not even thinking about the week after, is a daily inner emergency that people are living through.”
Hala sought psycho-social support from a UNHCR partner. It’s helping her cope with her reality. For the first time in a year, she is finally able to bring herself to hug her son.
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