Lebanon Diary Part VIII

Marcelle Bedran and 22 other Liberians and Lebanese-Liberians have been seeking a way out of Beirut for more than two weeks. They are among about 50 Liberians trapped in the besieged city. Many had fled civil war in their own country. Nearly 50 Ghanaians returned to Ghana from Lebanon on Tuesday with the help of their government and the UN's International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Liberia has been unable to secure an evacuation for its nationals. IRIN has been documenting the plight of Bedran and her fiancé, 25-year-old Saide Chaar, and their family through daily phone conversations that are published in narrative form. Their situation is deteriorating daily as they face persistent hunger, the threat of eviction and a grinding fear of air strikes or an escalation of the ground war. Bedran’s normally calm voice on Tuesday had a hard edge. Chaar’s control tightened to anger and he broke down in tears. The following is part VIII of an ongoing diary of their life in Beirut. Marcelle Bedran: 1 August 2006 (IRIN) – (The landlord) woke us up this morning by yelling at the window of the building – we’re on the ground floor – arguing that he told us to leave and we’re still there. He keeps cutting the water so we move. We got some bread and some corned beef and got a little bit of potatoes and we fried it. (Now) there’s no food and there’s no water at all. We went out looking at taxi stands to ask how much is the charge from Lebanon to the Syrian border. We went to several places and the prices range – the cheapest we could find was 500 dollars for the taxi. That would take six or us. If we’re 23 and we’re to rent a car we would need four or five taxis and that’s very expensive. Even the 500 dollars we don’t have that. We are just wondering where we’re going to get the taxi fare from, if we are able to. If some of us are able to get out I think we’re just going to be separated. You want to think about your friends, family, relatives, spouses. That would be very difficult. In a time like this when a country is at war and everybody is at war, if you’re going to think how to help everybody, then everybody will go down the drain. Everybody is tense. The whole house is tense: Who stays and how the others are going to cope and what are they going to do, and where is the money going to come from, and who is able to raise half of the money, and who is able to raise the other half.... When I got back from the taxi stands I couldn’t bear sitting in the house. I just went out all day. The helicopters are flying over the city. It is something I’m getting used to, but not in a comfortable way. It is something that is harming me (in an insidious way) as the days go by. I don’t even know what to feel, that’s the thing. This whole thing is about money. If you have money everything is solved. If we had money now we would have been gone a long time ago. But unfortunately we don’t come from a rich family. We are just a poor normal family here. Saide Chaar: If the Israelis or the Lebanese army or the Hizbullah come to my door, come to my house to harass my family, I will die for them, I will die for the Liberian people in Lebanon. I will defend myself. That should not be a surprise for the Liberians, that a Liberian man will defend himself in a crisis. I can’t take anymore. I have no food to eat. I take a bath once or twice a week. No water, no food for my family and the Liberian government is sitting there. And the American government, which is supposed to help Liberians, is not doing anything. We have no one to come to our rescue. Where are they? Why can’t they help us? Why can’t they help me?