Syria descends....

Tim Costello with Syrian refugees in Lebanon

Syria at war.  It now ranks as the world's largest refugee crisis since Rwanda, and the situation continues to deteriorate.  It is estimated that there are more than 4 million people internally displaced within Syria, and more than 1.5 million who have fled to neighbouring countries as refugees. World Vision is responding on a number of fronts, with emergency response activities ongoing in Lebanon, Jordan and now also in Syria itself.  The situation is complex and volatile, and presents significant operational challenges.  But the need is immense, and far exceeds the current funding available or capacity of NGOs/UN agencies to respond.  Tim Costello, CEO of World Vision Australia was recently in Lebanon and Jordan, and wrote the following piece following the visit:

Last week I sat in a tent in Lebanon with a Syrian refugee couple who had escaped with their five children. Tameer and Delal fled with only the clothes they were wearing after three of their neighbours - including a cousin - were killed outside their Damascus home by an aerial bombing campaign. Once they reached the Lebanese border, the family walked for more than a day before finding help through World Vision in the Bekaa Valley.

Tameer and Delal's children cannot go to Lebanese schools due to overcrowding, and when I met them, five months after their escape, the kids were desperately bored. Each of them told me their greatest wish was to go to school.  I asked Tameer if he had hope, because this seems to be profoundly important for many refugees. He said his faith in the omnipotence of Allah had not been shaken, but he prayed each day to return to his Damascus home and lead a normal life as an iron worker. The humiliation he felt as a result of not being able to provide for his family was matched only by the anxiety and strain etched into his wife's face.

As fate would have it, a few days earlier I had been in the company of someone who, if not omnipotent, is certainly one of the world's most powerful leaders. This is a man whose decisions could determine the fate of Tameer's family and millions of other Syrian refugees.  I was in Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in my role leading Australia's civil society response to the policies of the G20. I raised with Putin the urgent need to guarantee humanitarian space in Syria, so aid agencies could reach the 4 million refugees now internally displaced in Syria. I begged him not to keep supplying arms. I did not see how more weapons could mean anything but more deaths. Already more than 93,000 Syrians have lost their lives in this conflict. He was prepared to say he would push for a diplomatic solution at Geneva 2 - a promise he kept the next day when he attended the G8 meeting. But I left convinced the war in Syria is now a war by proxy, with Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar - not to mention the West - positioning for their preferred political outcome. In doing so, they are flooding an already weapons-drenched region with more arms. It could be years before Tameer can go home.

But hope came to me in a surprise encounter. Back in Beirut I was walking to my hotel one evening and was beckoned into a small workshop and offered coffee by a stranger. The man was a Lebanese Christian named Milat. Sitting in the torchlight was a Syrian Sunni woman and her two sons. Without any place to call home, Milat had taken them in. He explained he supported President Assad as most Christians in the region did but the woman and her sons were praying for the rebels' victory.  Genuinely surprised, I asked how he could live with such political tension and provide food and shelter for them with no end in sight. He shrugged and said they were fellow humans. It was just so simple and his hospitality struck me as a modern-day re-run of the Good Samaritan, a story of 2000 years ago.

Many Lebanese are deeply concerned that the new arrivals from Syria will stay like the Palestinians did after 1948, and many others are terrified by the prospect of Lebanon being destabilised. And yet, thousands of Lebanese like Milat have taken these refugees into their homes.

I wondered how many Australians would respond like this. It stunned me to think that with an estimated 550,000 Syrian refugees now in Lebanon, a country of just 4.3 million people, citizens still find it in their hearts to treat the refugees as humans. It gave me hope and perspective. If only the world's leaders, with the fate of Syria in their hands, could meet Milat.

Tim Costello   July 2013

It is anticipated that by Christmas every fourth person
 in Lebanon will be a refugee

Construction underway for Azraq camp in Jordan,
which will host up to 130,000 refugees.  World Vision
is carrying out all water and sanitation works for the camp.

Makeshift Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon 

Initial shelter construction at Azraq camp in Jordan