Israeli bombs push Lebanon migrants out of shadows

Beirut: In the chaos sweeping Lebanon, migrant workers from countries like Ethiopia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Sudan have emerged from the shadows as they flee Israel’s aerial bombardment.

The usually quiet parish of Saint Joseph of the Jesuit Brothers in Beirut now echoes with the sounds of children.

Exhausted women huddle around a table while others wait for meals, under the constant hum of Israeli drones.

Every day, more arrive from Lebanon’s south, the east and Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The church, once a daytime shelter for migrants, became an overnight refuge when the Israeli air strikes began, said Brother Michael Petro of the Jesuit Refugee Service.

Word of mouth spread fast among the displaced.

“A family from our church arrived here (and) asked if they could stay. We said ‘Yes’, and the next morning 30 people arrived, and then (another) 50,” said the American Jesuit.

“On the first day, we called every shelter in the country. We could not find space, either because they were full or because we were told shelters will not accept migrants.”

Some families were eventually accommodated, and the parish now houses 52 migrants.

Israeli bombing of Lebanon has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

In the capital, displaced Lebanese are being housed in schools, shelters or hotels, often in precarious conditions, with some still sleeping on the streets.

‘Invisible’

Migrants “also need help”, said Dea Hage Chahine, a Lebanese activist.

“They are just invisible, like third-class” citizens, she said angrily, adding that migrant workers often “don’t even have their own passports” or rights.

Kumiri Parara, a 48-year-old Sri Lankan, arrived days ago with her 12-year-old son, fleeing Sidon in the south under the bombs.

She has been in Lebanon for 20 years, had been married to a Palestinian before divorcing, and found employment as a domestic worker, like many of her compatriots in the Mediterranean country.

Her employers in Sidon also fled, but she has not heard from them.

“No one cared about me,” she said softly, dressed in a bright orange tunic.

Her compatriot, Malani Somalatha, a 46-year-old cook, lived in south Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold heavily bombarded by Israel, where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed on Friday.

“We left everything and came here,” she said, breaking into tears, adding the restaurant where she worked has closed.

Lebanon hosts more than 160,000 migrants, 65 percent of them women, the International Organization for Migration reported last year.

There are likely even more, however, as many are undocumented or in legal limbo.

Most are in Lebanon under the “kafala” system, a sponsorship process that governs the presence of foreign workers but allows for numerous abuses, rights activists say.

‘We just want to go home’

Susan Baimba came from Sierra Leone two years ago to work as a housekeeper near Sidon.

When the strikes began, she fled to Beirut with her compatriots and slept on the streets before ending up at the Saint Joseph church.

She tried to join other Sierra Leoneans living in apartments in the capital, but “the landlords chased us away. They say, ‘Go away, go away. We don’t want problems’,” said the 37-year-old.

“All of us, we just want to go back home because we are tired,” she said.

At the Saint Joseph, women and children are housed in a room on the first floor, and men on the second.

Malika Joumaa, a 30-year-old Sudanese woman, left war-torn Darfur in 2014.

A few days ago, she fled Arnoun in southern Lebanon with her husband and young daughter.

She described a harrowing journey - one and a half days on a motorcycle, a night under a bridge near Beirut, and finally arriving at the Saint Joseph.

“I don’t understand why war broke out in Sudan, and I don’t understand why it broke out here,” she said.