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| A wasteland: Rubble is all that’s left of bombed areas of Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. Nicholas Blanford |
Tough homecoming for Lebanon's refugees
After three months of fighting, Palestinians return to flattened refugee camp.
from the November 14, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Access to Nahr al-Bared is still tightly controlled by the Lebanese army.
Journalists are banned from the camp and only a few non-governmental organizations and the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees have been allowed inside.
Troops suspected of looting camps
The restricted access is compounding allegations made by returning Palestinians that Lebanese troops looted, vandalized, and torched their homes, in some cases after the cessation of fighting and before the refugees began returning home. The walls of homes are covered with graffiti, some patriotic messages signed by individual army units, others insults directed toward the Palestinians.
In Mahmoud's home, sacks of stored flour, rice, and sugar were sliced open with knives or bayonets and spilled onto the floor. Two rooms were set on fire, the walls and ceiling streaked with black lines from the flammable liquid thought to have started the blaze.
"We had one television smashed and one stolen, three radios stolen, and $8,000 in cash stolen," says Mahmoud. "The soldiers wrote us a note saying that the money was for them not us."
Last week, the human rights watchdog Amnesty International called on the Lebanese government to launch an inquiry into the alleged arson and looting.
In response, the Lebanese government said in a statement that it "does not accept at all any violation of the law or human rights, especially against our Palestinian refugee brothers."
A spokesman at the Lebanese Ministry of Defense declined to comment, saying it was an internal military issue.
The allegations have gained little traction in the Lebanese media. The army won considerable praise and respect and boosted national pride during the bloody campaign against Fatah al-Islam, and its image of sacrifice and nobility risks being tarnished by the airing of reputed misdeeds in Nahr al-Bared.
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