Lebanon: A bomb took Hussein’s life

Among the victims of the conflict in southern Lebanon is one of the children involved in AVSI’s Distance Support Program. From Beirut comes an appeal from Marco Perini, regional manager for AVSI in the MENA region.

Marco_Perini_Regional manager MENA AVSI
Countries Lebanon
Date 25.10.2024
Author by Marco Perini - AVSI MENA Regional Manager in Beirut, Lebanon

A few days ago in Khiam, a village in southern Lebanon, Hussein, 15, and his father were killed by a missile, while they were going to water the animals in the stable.

Since 2017, Hussein had been supported at distance by Monica and her family from Italy. For nine years, a strong bond of friendship had been created between them, slowly, through simple correspondence, a habit that, while helping Hussein go to school, allowed Monica's family to know the reality outside their world, to understand the reality of war.

In one of his last letters, Hussein wrote: "It is true that the situation is not at all calm but we are fine, thank God. I continue my studies, thank you for the interest you show in me. I hope this bad period ends soon".

Now the temptation that threatens us is to believe that under the rubble, with Hussein and his father, there is also the hope that animated Hussein. But Monica, her husband and her children say no, they do not want to stop: they will help Hussein's mother and three brothers to start again, moved by the will to continue to help, together with us, the 1,300 children and families of distance support in Lebanon. From a context of war that wants us to believe that everything is destroyed, I ask you to join Monica in the will to never stop helping us. Never.

Emergenza_libano_AVSI_donazioni
Donate now
AVSI in Lebanon is helping 13,000 people living in 130 shelters; we give them basic necessities such as water, food, blankets and psychosocial support for children.
  • 50€   Istantaneo
  • 70€   Istantaneo
  • 100€   Istantaneo

What is going on in Lebanon

After a year of war in the south and a month of conflict across all of Lebanon, people can not take it anymore. This exhaustion shows itself in many ways. What worries me most, however, is the risk of an internal conflict that undermines Lebanon’s mosaic of differences in which Shiites, Sunnis, Druze, Christians, Palestinians, Syrians live together. Besides bombing nightly, knocking down houses and buildings, and causing innocent casualties, Israel is also targeting displaced Hezbollah leaders. And when you find yourself with a stranger who has found refuge as a neighbor, it is normal to be afraid. Such fear can spread, potentially leading to an inter-confessional conflict.

Our mission is purely humanitarian: we work in the places where people have found shelter, 114 schools, 3 universities, 125 shelters. We also take care of those who have found an apartment to stay in, but have no money for food, no mattresses.

Children are scared: one of our most important activities is to prevent them from growing old too soon. We engage them in play, drawing, and dancing, which allows them to express trauma and helps them process it. We want to momentarily detach them from this living purgatory. They live with people they don't know, in schools where everyone sleeps together, without private spaces or a corner to read a book, where they see their parents sad and suffering. Making them play is essential: at ages 5, 6, or 7, many have left home for an unknown destination. This is why our job is not just to unload trucks, but to accompany, share, and look for moments of serenity, because the war has swept away everything. We help 13 thousand people, but we do not just worry about providing water, food, medicine, money.

Most live in schools, which therefore no longer function. Hundreds of thousands of children do not attend classes because the schools have become dormitories. Some displaced people live in other public buildings, the luckiest in houses, small apartments, even if they are usually occupied by 20-30 people. Those who have found nothing else live on the streets: there are kilometers of sidewalks full of tents, with the car parked next to them that serves as a storage room, a tent as a bedroom and the dining room under the sky. Now it is 20 degrees, but winter is coming here too, with cold and rain. For thousands of people it will be a huge problem: it is already a problem today to live without drinking water and toilets.

The little nuns of Ivrea (the Sisters of Charity of the Immaculate Conception) work on the hill north of Beirut, they have 40-50 families housed in the villages around the convent, to whom we bring material aid and whom we support with the psychological counseling center and by carrying out activities for their children. We work where people have fled: Beirut, Mount Lebanon and part of the Bekaa. But we also work in war zones: in the south, in Marjayoun, there are 500 families (so 2-3 thousand people) who have decided not to abandon their village, despite the bombings: two AVSI workers remain with them. We are 5 kilometers from the border with Israel. We sent aid there with an escort from the Lebanese army.