“Women and children and the elderly are coming out in the cold, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, to seek safety.” reports Father Simon Faddoul, president of Caritas Lebanon.
“It’s very cold, and they have nothing,” he said.
The U.N. refugee agency said that as many as 2,000 Syrian Refugees crossed into Lebanon on March 5-6 to escape the violence that has claimed hundreds of lives.
Father Faddoul said most of the refugees arrived on foot from areas near the besieged city of Homs.
“They are leaving the young men behind in Syria to guard their houses from attack, ” he said.
Fr. Paul Karam, Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Lebanon reports that “We have direct experience of Christian families who have fled to Syria from the violence or the oppression of the regime. There are families who have relatives in Lebanon who have fled here and want to change their lives, looking for work. The Church’s response in Lebanon was the hospitality and care of these people: we host them in parishes, provide food and clothing, we assist them at an economic level and insert them into the social fabric. The Syrian Christian families are divided into several parishes and dioceses.”
“With regards to the non-Christian families we have no direct news, but we know that there are many in the North and the Lebanese government has asked the population to accept refugees”.
With regards to the Syrian crisis, Fr. Karam says: “As a Church we reiterate that we are against violence. We want to promote peace and encourage dialogue. As for the Christians, the danger that looms is a scenario like Iraq, where Christians are forced to flee the country. The risk is that a dictatorial regime is replaced with an Islamist type which imposes the sharia”.
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