Mount Lebanon’s displaced await state help

After years of displacement, Hasib Saad and his wife Margaret have returned to Remhala in Mount Lebanon, which they fled during the civil war, some 20 km from the capital, Beirut. Sometimes, though, they wish they hadn’t. “Life is tough here. Very few people have returned and there is no investment,” Hasib said. “This place was thriving before we left, and now it’s a useless pit.” There are approximately 100 villages in Mount Lebanon. While the area is now a peaceful place, brimming with quaint fir trees, there is little activity. According to Dorine Abou Rachi, who heads the Lebanese Displaced Programme run by the Caritas Catholic international NGO, the villages of Mount Lebanon are ghost towns. "Not more than 17 percent of the people have returned to their villages," she said. "There are no medical or education facilities and the government hasn’t put any effort into rebuilding schools and hospitals.” “There isn’t any development or investment," she added. More interested in booming cities like Beirut, investors have shied away from Mount Lebanon, where only relatively small businesses are in evidence. Abou Rachi estimated that 75 to 80 percent of the people now living in the area are unemployed. “Finding jobs is the villagers' first priority," she noted. "Those who came back are mainly low-income families who can't afford to live in the cities.” If they hadn’t been forced to return by their economic situations, they would never have come back," she added. The 1975-1990 Civil War, along with the Israeli “interventions” of 1978 and 1982, resulted in the displacement of an estimated million people in this small Mediterranean country of roughly 4.5 million. “We had to leave our home because we could see rockets falling and knew there were snipers outside,” Saad recalled. On 1 November, Minister for the Displaced Nehme Tohme announced that his ministry had been granted the funds required to resolve the issue of displaced persons. "According to statistics conducted by the ministry, the amount of money required to settle the issue is LL550 billion (approximately US $366 million)," he said. "Teams from the ministry and the fund will be visiting the villages of the displaced in order to check on the situation of the houses and buildings," Tomeh explained. According to Abou Rashi, however, little implementation has been seen so far. "Many families haven’t received any payment yet, or only part of it," she said. "It’s not enough to have the money – there needs to be a real action plan as well." While no reliable statistics are available, the Ministry for the Displaced says that almost 80,000 people have been able to return to Mount Lebanon since the end of the war.