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last winter Vice news spent a week in
lebanon's bah Valley with Syrian
refugees living in a camp in the city of
alarge this year we returned to see how
the people we met were
doing even before you get to the more
formal larger camp that we're headed to
there are tents and smaller camps
everywhere and that's increased since
last
year it's just
always really difficult for me to
imagine spending a
winter living
in a shelter like
that there are approximately 1 and2
million syrians in Lebanon in the bah
which is close to the Border there are
more Syrian refugees than
Lebanese last winter a lot of people
were still hoping that they might be
able to return home
soon and so they hadn't really thought
of where they were living is quite so
permanent
and in the last
year things have just deteriorated
further in Syria and people are
consigned to the fact that they may be
here
for another few years no really knows
there's there's no real end in
sight when we met Jihad selem and his
family last winter they were cleaning up
the pieces of their
tent he was skeptical about what good
talking to us again would
do he hadn't seen the piece we filmed
the year before
after watching it he opened up a bit and
showed us how he passes the time and
earns what money he can
for Fore
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Jihad and the other refugees rent the
space for their tents from the farmer
that owns the
field the cold is not the only
danger 7 months ago a fire destroyed
jihad's tent along with most of the camp
an infant died in The Blaze already in
debt Jihad was forced to borrow more to
rebuild 12-year-old noal also lives in
the camp with her
family women and children here are
increasingly becoming Breadwinners in
Refugee families
no's father disappeared in Syria 2 years
ago no walks to work whatever the
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for last winter we also met jihad's
sister hadia whose family shared jihad's
tent they built their own after the fire
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for one thing that a lot of people have
told us that's maybe a little bit
counterintuitive
is that they don't want to emigrate to
the west to Europe the us or Canada they
want to stay here they're worried that
they'll feel uncomfortable in societies
where they might be stigmatized as Arabs
or Muslims and we've even heard stories
of people who have traveled to Europe
already returning back to this area
because they felt uncomfortable or that
maybe the opportunities that they had
hoped for just weren't
there
for outside the camp the Lebanese can
relate to what syrians are
experiencing hundreds of thousands of
Lebanese became refugees during the
Civil War that lasted from 1975 to
1990 todic was one of
them you lived in the United States for
more than 20 years more than 20 years
and since especially since the attacks
in Paris people in the US have expressed
a lot of fear when they see the news and
the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and
many of them make a connection between
these refugees and the Islamic State and
and their fears of terrorism what would
you say to to Americans about
that what can I say I mean these poor
people are here they have barely enough
to eat or barely enough to warm
themselves those are not terrorists they
are just normal people who run away from
bombing and killing and some of them
lost family members and they're here
just trying to live that's all it's a
burden on on this community it's a
burden on marriage burden for water for
food and everything else um I don't
think I can do it and even though I
was at a point you know one of refugee
in the state and I don't know how can
they can do it I you know they're living
really
tough the war shows no signs of slowing
down instead area is becoming more and
more fragmented and violent Russia has
joined the US amongst the foreign powers
attempting to influence the outcome and
the bombing carried out by the Russian
Air Force has created hundreds of
thousands more
refugees Lebanon however can hardly take
anymore
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