The refugee from Homs who can hardly afford to feed his family
United Nations and Red Crescent vehicles loaded with suitcases escort Syrian civilians evacuated from the besieged Syrian city of Homs, on February 9, 2014.
Editor's note: This article is part of a series profiling Syrians to mark the fourth anniversary of the country's civil war. A different person will be profiled every day for four days.
KHALDEH, Lebanon — Four years ago, a few hundred Syrians took to the streets in Damascus, Aleppo and Daraa in what was billed as a “Day of Rage” against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Inspired by the Arab Spring protests that had erupted in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere, they marched peacefully, and cautiously, fully aware that they lived in a place where such actions were not tolerated.
Few could have predicted the scale of the tragedy that would follow. After protests were brutally suppressed by the government, a peaceful movement transformed into an armed revolution, then an all-consuming civil war.
Countless lives have been lost between then and now. Families have been torn apart. Communities broken. Ancient archeological treasures felled. And a country destroyed.
Every Syrian can tell a story of how the war has changed their life forever. This is Ahmad's.
The refugee
Ahmad was in the real estate business. He sold commercial and residential properties in his home city of Homs, and he did a good trade. He owned his own home, where he lived with his wife, two of his three daughters and two sons. He rented an office nearby, where he worked.
“Business was great,” he says. But in the space of four short years, he lost everything. He now lives in Lebanon, in a small town just south of Beirut, and he can barely afford to put a roof over his head.
Ahmad is one of four million Syrians who have become refugees since the war began in 2011. Like countless others, he swapped a perilous existence for a penniless one.
Sitting in a bare apartment on the side of a hill in the coastal town of Khaldeh, 13 kilometers south of Beirut, he recounts the confusion of the early days of the war.
“I tried to stay. I was running everywhere to stay out of trouble.”
Homs was among the first cities in the country to see large-scale protests against the government. It earned the title of “capital of the revolution” for its fierce opposition to Assad in the years to come. But when protests broke out, Ahmad’s first concern was keeping his family safe.
“I never joined the demonstrations. I wasn’t with or against anyone. I just wanted to keep to myself,” he says. “But when you live in a place like Homs, you have to take a side or run.”
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Ahmad and his family moved six times over the course of a year and a half. He reads off the names of the neighborhoods of Homs in which they stayed. Aside from the dangers they faced, the constant moving consumed all their savings. When they had nothing left, they decided it was time to leave.
“Every time we moved it cost us a lot of money. I couldn’t find the money to feed my children,” he says.
In March 2012, Ahmad’s family moved to Damascus, where they stayed for 10 days with relatives. From there, they set off for Lebanon.
“We left our house. We had nothing — no clothes, no money.”
As a refugee in Lebanon, Ahmad and his family would have access to some support from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR). But as he discovered quickly after arriving, that support was not enough, and being a stranger in a country presented its own set of problems.
“Here is the hardest part. There are good people here, but I have starved. If you saw me two years ago you wouldn’t recognize me. I wasn’t this thin.”
Ahmad and his family get $95 week from the UNHCR. He says it rarely lasts a week.
“We buy wheat and rice, just the basics,” the concierge of the building brings me food sometimes. Concierges are some of the poorest people in Lebanon and he takes pity on me,” Ahmad said.
One of Ahmad’s sons managed to find work in the town as an electrician. His entire salary of $500 a month pays for the apartment in which the family live. While their financial situation is bleak, Ahmad considers himself lucky when compared to the tens of thousands of other Syrians in Lebanon.
Lebanon, with a population of four million, is now hosting more than 1.2 million Syrian refugees. That is just the number who have registered with the UNHCR, the actual number in the country is much higher.
Those who cannot afford to rent an apartment find shelter wherever they can. Thousands of informal settlements have sprung up all over the country. They can be seen by the side of the road, in patches of wasteland — anywhere there is space.
Some are made up of ramshackle structures built out of whatever material the new arrivals can get their hands on. Many are unsafe and fall down when the wind is strong. Abandoned buildings also serve as homes, with building owners taking hundreds of dollars for a bare concrete room.
Unlike other surrounding countries that have taken in large number of refugees, the Lebanese government does not allow formal camps. The government says it simply cannot afford to host such a large refugee community, and so does all it can to discourage more from coming.
The influx has put a strain on the local population as they now have to compete for jobs and resources with a greater number of people. Some local authorities have imposed curfews for Syrians, while violence toward refugees has increased.
Aid agencies attempt to fill in the gaps, but the vast majority of Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in crippling poverty.
The little furniture Ahmad has in his apartment — a few mattresses, a rug and a small cooking stove which they use to cook all their food — was donated by other people.
Ahmad’s 10-year-old son Hamza plays with crayons while his father talks, drawing a picture of a house.
“I took him to one school and they asked for $100 for three months. Who can afford that?” Ahmad said. “My son sits on the balcony watching other kids go to school and asks why he can’t go.”
Ahmad flits between talking about his difficulties here in Lebanon and the life he had in Homs.
“Syria was the safest country ever before all this. We could walk anywhere we wanted at any time. I don’t think it will be like this again.”
“Maybe my son’s generation will see it, but not me.”
Editor's note: The names of people quoted in this article were changed to protect their identities.