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Syria a haven for fleeing Lebanese

There aren't a lot of frills, but refugees are welcomed into a safe haven away from the Israeli-Hezbollah fighting.

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published July 26, 2006

	[Times photos: Susan Taylor Martin]
	Nabila Moussarah hugs 18-month-old son Hussein, who breathes through a tracheotomy tube that must be frequently cleaned. She and her family packed into a van with five relatives and left south Lebanon.
	Antonio Georges, with his daughter Habiba, 3, took his family to Syria after a bombing near their Beirut apartment. They ended up at the Convent of Our Lady of Sednaya in the mountains outside Damascus.

DAMASCUS, Syria - By 1:30 p.m. on Day 12 of the Israeli offensive, Nabila Moussarah had had enough.

It wasn't just the deafening noise from Israeli bombs falling near her south Lebanon village. Or the anxiety of wondering if a missile might hit the bridge a few hundred feet from her home.

It was not even fear for herself. But could her 18-month-old son, Hussein, survive much longer without electricity for the machine that keeps him alive?

"All the time I was crying for my child," Moussarah says. "Me, I prefer to die in my country. But what is the reason for any kids to be killed? They haven't seen anything or done anything in their lives yet."

So at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Moussarah, her husband, their four children and five other relatives piled into a van. Then they set out for neighboring Syria.

As fighting rages between Israel and the radical Lebanese group Hezbollah, Syria has become a safe haven for at least 120,000 people who have fled the violence in Lebanon. The influx has slowed, but hundreds still stream across the border every day.

Critics say Syria itself helped create the refugee crisis because it is a transit point for weapons that Hezbollah gets from its backer, Iran. Among them are the Katyusha rockets that have rained down on towns and cities in northern Israel, prompting the massive retaliation that has killed at least 400 Lebanese and sent others fleeing in terror.

But while Syria is considered a "rogue" nation by the United States and Israel, it has shown a softer side to generations of refugees: Palestinians who left Israel after it became a state in 1948; Lebanese who escaped their country during its 15-year civil war; 1-million Iraqis who have fled the mayhem that erupted after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Syria, alone among Arab nations, lets all Arabs enter without a visa. Thus, this last bastion of pan-Arabism is now hosting yet another major wave of refugees.

The Syrian Red Crescent Society - which so far is handling the influx with no outside help - meets refugees at the border and gives them food, water and medical care. The poorest are then registered and bused to temporary shelters in schools and government-owned summer youth camps.

For thousands of others, the temporary home away from home is the kind of modest hotel - bug zapper in the lobby and no air conditioning - where Nabila Moussarah and her family landed.

The Hotel Musalan Ibn Akeel is on the southern outskirts of Damascus - a largely Shiite Muslim area were most women are swathed in black. Some stores display posters of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah brandishing a Kalashnikov as Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock shrine gleams behind him.

This is Syria's peak season for religious tourism, when busloads of pilgrims come from Iran to visit the shrine of Zeinab, granddaughter of the prophet Mohammed. The hotel's owner says he could make a lot of money if he weren't giving a 50 percent discount to the Lebanese refugees. That cuts the cost of a small, two-bedroom efficiency to about $60 a night.

Moussarah hasn't visited Zeinab's shrine; she spends all her time tending to her baby.

Because of an accident when he was 7 months old, Hussein breathes through a blue tracheotomy tube in his throat that must be frequently cleared. That can be done with a machine, but soon after Israel started bombing near the family's village of Zaharani, the power went out and the machine was useless.

Moussarah, a nurse, had to clear Hussein's airway herself. "I was nervous all the time."

As Israeli bombs and missiles hit ever closer to the bridge near their home, the family decided to leave. Once Hussein's medical equipment was loaded in the van, there was just enough room for each family member to take two changes of clothing.

They set out across the Bekaa Valley, the swath of rich farmland in eastern Lebanon. The main road had been bombed, forcing them into a gully so steep and rocky the van almost overturned.

Moussarah prayed the entire way. Her older children - 13, 7 and 5 - sang Itsy Bitsy Spider to distract Hussein's attention from the booms and thuds in the distance.

At last, 3 hours later, they reached the border. "It was perfect," Moussarah says of Syrian immigration officials. "I told them I had a sick baby and they finished with me in five minutes."

Their driver recommended the hotel, where dozens of other Lebanese had already moved in.

There's Ahmed Kougok, who mourns his Canadian-Lebanese cousins. They recently built a house in south Lebanon as a vacation retreat and were staying in it for the first time. A bomb fell, killing everyone inside.

There's Eman Salehy, who just graduated from Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. She and her family had gone to Beirut to spend what they thought would be a relaxed few weeks away from the escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then Israeli bombs began falling a few hundred yards from her uncle's apartment building.

And Hadi Al Horschi, who works for a Lebanese utility company. A week ago Friday, he was walking toward his car in Beirut when shrapnel from an Israeli missile smashed the driver-side door. Several people were injured and other cars were destroyed.

Although he had to climb through the window, Horschi drove his damaged Toyota to Damascus with seven relatives crammed inside. Was there any room for luggage?

"This," he says, pointing to the jeans and sandals he has been wearing for days.

Some of the refugees in Syria will quickly move on. Horschi is running out of money, so he will return to Beirut this week. Moussarah's husband has been working in the United Arab Emirates, and the family will stay in his apartment there for the time being.

But thousands of other refugees wonder where they will go from here.

Antonios Georges decided to take his daughter and pregnant wife to Syria after a bombing near their Beirut apartment killed several Lebanese soldiers.

But Georges, who occasionally works as a laborer, doesn't have a car, and taxi drivers wanted $500 a person for the trip. The Georgeses had to sell every piece of jewelry they owned to raise the $1,500.

Almost broke when they reached Damascus, Georges caught up with an acquaintance. He suggested they go to the Convent of Our Lady of Sednaya high in the mountains outside the city. After Jerusalem, it is the holiest site for Orthodox Christians: legend has it that the transfiguration of the Virgin Mary took place there.

At the height of the refugee influx, the convent sheltered nearly 300 Lebanese, including several relatives of one of the nuns. The number has dropped to about 100, including Georges and his family. A neighbor called to tell them that almost everything in their apartment has been stolen since they left.

The convent is in a beautiful, tranquil setting. But 3-year-old Habiba misses her home and cries much of the time. There is little to do but watch the tourists, many of them wealthy Lebanese Christians who also fled Beirut but can afford to go on to New York or Dubai.

But for Georges, a Christian himself, "what happens now is up the mercy of God, my God," he says. "This is the new life for me."

Susan Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 26, 2006, 01:54:23]