The double refugees from Shatila

Shatila is a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Beirut. It was built to house around 3000 people after the 1949 Arab-Israeli War to house the Palestinian refugees who fled or were displaced during the 1948 Palestinian exodus. Shatila turns seventy in 2019 and is one of the oldest refugee camps in the world.

There are 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon with a total of around 500 registered refugees. Lebanon's neighboring country Syria once offered another 000 Palestinian refugees accommodation in 560 camps. Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, more than 000 Syrian-born Palestinians have fled Syria and become so-called "double refugees". As a result, the number of refugees in Shatila rose from 13 in 110 to an estimated 000 people, who are now crammed into about one square kilometer.

Of all the neighboring countries of Syria, Lebanon has taken in the most people seeking protection in relation to its population. However, they receive neither accommodation nor food from the state. And getting a work permit is practically impossible. As a result, the refugees in Shatila live in great poverty. The camp also allegedly has one of the highest urban populations in the world and is bursting at the seams, a dark, crowded concrete maze with high crime rates and a high number of attacks on women

The refugees in the camp all share one hope: to leave this prison as soon as possible and fly to another country.