{"id":16760,"date":"2026-06-09T11:57:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/biel-camps-health-risks-displaced-tents-beirut\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T11:57:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:57:59","slug":"biel-camps-health-risks-displaced-tents-beirut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/biel-camps-health-risks-displaced-tents-beirut\/","title":{"rendered":"The “Biel” Camps: What Health Risks Threaten the Tent Residents?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hundreds of residents in the \u201cBiel\u201d camps on Beirut\u2019s seafront face a harsh reality that strips them of the most basic essentials of human dignity; the absence of hygiene and the accumulation of waste place them at risk of being threatened by epidemics, at a time when these makeshift, overcrowded tents face future health and environmental hazards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At exactly six in the morning, \u201cAli\u201d wakes up like any normal human being on the face of the earth, searching for a drop of water to wash his face or brush his teeth, trying to wipe away the remnants of a heavy night of displacement. But here, behind the capital\u2019s seafront, biological basics turn into an arduous daily \u201cjourney,\u201d and cleanliness becomes a luxury that requires great effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I just want to brush my teeth, I have to walk to a very far place, and often exhaustion overwhelms me, so I cancel the idea entirely and postpone this self-evident right for a day or two.\u201d This is how Ali\u2019s daily journey begins, with the \u201cbattle of brushing one\u2019s teeth\u201d; this human battle, whose bitter details he recounts to the \u201cSilat Wassel\u201d platform, and if he wants to shower, the suffering multiplies into a march of hardship extending for more than two kilometers on foot in search of a suitable place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This morning tragedy is not a passing detail concerning Ali alone, but part of collective hardships faced by hundreds of displaced people who suddenly found themselves inside a newly created pocket of misery of adjoining tents; there they wake up daily to spend long hours managing their basic biological needs, which drains their energy and leaves dire psychological and health effects on adults and children alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A photo showing the waste near the displaced people\u2019s tents<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Weather fluctuations multiply the tragedy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the rain falls, we live a second war and another suffering that is hard to resist\u201d; this is how Ali describes the scale of the tragedy with the changing weather of May 2026. \u201cIt rained for only one day, and to this day we are still repairing the tarpaulins and dealing with the aftermath of the water. Only yesterday were we able to dry our belongings; we had to take the furniture and items out into the open and wait for them to dry while we sat without shelter outside our soaked tent,\u201d Ali continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other side of the seasons, summer brings no mercy; with the onset of heat waves, these plastic tents turn into something like suffocating \u201cthermal ovens\u201d that lack ventilation and electricity, which raises the likelihood of heatstroke and severe dehydration among children and the elderly, who do not have the luxury of climatic adaptation, completing the chapters of the daily drama between a frost that drowns the tents and a summer that burns the bodies of their residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This latest field escalation came to multiply the fragility of an already strained humanitarian reality; Lebanon is fundamentally facing a multi-layered crisis driven by economic collapse, prolonged displacement, and continuous climatic pressures. Today, more than 2.7 million people in the country lack safe water, while about 20% of school-age children are deprived of education, according to UNICEF figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Logistical chaos: the search for hygiene supplies and toilets<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are in a state of continuous displacement and constant movement; we first fled to Tripoli, and from there to Beirut\u2019s southern suburb, then we went up to the Kfarman area in southern Lebanon, and now we have ended up here in the Biel camp.\u201d This is how Hassan Yahya, displaced from the southern town of Kfar Kila, recounts his family\u2019s journey of dispersal over months; the daily suffering is not limited to the elements of nature, but extends to the impossible details of personal hygiene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On another note, \u201csecuring water represents a very large burden, and the toilets are about 700 meters away from where we live\u201d; this is how Hassan embodies the scale of the suffering that sometimes forces him to travel by car just to fill water in plastic containers, then return to relieve himself and shower inside the tent using that water. He continues, with regret, about the absence of basic relief support, saying: \u201cAs for laundry, we faced many problems, which prompted me to buy a washing machine, a refrigerator, and a primitive solar power system at my own expense just to meet our basic needs of charging phones and washing clothes.\u201d As for the aid that reaches him, according to his remarks to \u201cSilat Wassel,\u201d it does not provide a sufficient amount of necessary materials such as laundry detergents and cleaning supplies, \u201cand we are forced to buy them daily out of our own money, which directly affects our personal hygiene and the hygiene of our children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On another side of the camp, the displaced man Hussein highlights for the \u201cSilat Wassel\u201d platform the crisis of the absence of medicines and health equipment, considering that \u201cwhat families need most now is medicine and basic disinfectants (such as Dettol); because the shared toilets completely lack cleanliness and disinfection. And if a person wants to shower, he has to put the water container under the sun\u2019s rays for hours until it heats up, then shower with it inside his tent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat families need most now is medicine and basic disinfectants\u201d <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Hussein\u2019s suffering extends to document the crisis of the overcrowded shared toilets, where the displaced have to wait a long time for their turn, and he sums this up by saying: \u201cSix or seven people take turns on a single toilet one after another, which is a nauseating situation. There are toilets located on the outskirts of the camp that require a seven-minute walk to reach, and people are forced to go there because of the severe overcrowding and the piling of tents on top of one another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Smells of rot and the threat of the \u201cnew Hanta virus\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are tents that, when you enter them, you are met by very foul smells of rot resulting from the absence of facilities, and the people here are in dire need of alternative mobile toilets that would help solve the crisis instead of leaving polluted water on the ground.\u201d Hussein demands solutions to these problems, for this severe overcrowding, the absence of sewage channels, and the municipalities\u2019 delay in removing the waste containers piled up between the tents have produced a catastrophic environmental reality. This pollution also extends even to people\u2019s daily bread; \u201ceven the bread they bring from outside, they leave it out in the open air, which causes it to rot and spoil before our eyes,\u201d Hussein says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This environmental deterioration raises the level of danger to unprecedented levels; from a medical standpoint, Dr. Salam Abu Rafe warns of an imminent health catastrophe, for under these harsh living conditions, \u201cthere is a real risk of the spread of new infectious epidemics, some of which we had basically forgotten existed a long time ago,\u201d Abu Rafe confirms in a conversation with the \u201cSilat Wassel\u201d platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Abu Rafe reveals a heavy health challenge for 2026: \u201cFor example, today we face the risk of the Hanta virus (the new hantavirus), which is transmitted directly via rodents and rats, and more than one case has been recorded in Lebanon recently. All age groups are susceptible to infection, especially people who suffer from pre-existing health problems that reduce their immunity and their ability to resist disease, while children in general fall under the category of the groups most exposed to these deadly epidemics and to skin and respiratory infections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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A photo showing the displaced people\u2019s suffering in obtaining water<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The absence of the ministry and of official responsibility<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
In the face of this looming epidemic and environmental threat, some parties are trying to provide minimal solutions; the Ministry of Public Health is leading efforts to activate field hospitals and provide free hospitalization for the displaced in government hospitals for emergency and epidemic cases. In return, a huge gap appears in the work of the relief infrastructure led by the Ministry of Social Affairs in cooperation with the Disaster Risk Management Unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here it must be noted that we repeatedly tried to contact the officials concerned at the Ministry of Social Affairs to learn about the government\u2019s adopted emergency plan for providing solutions for the newly created Biel camps and its effectiveness, but we were unable to obtain any statement or answer; administration sources within the ministry stated that the minister is currently outside Lebanon, leaving the suffering of 400 families hanging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The rescue plan: who will stop this catastrophe?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\u201cConfronting these future risks cannot tolerate postponement, and requires applying immediate preventive and relief measures before the crisis explodes health-wise\u201d; this is how Dr. Salam Abu Rafe sees it, as he in turn stresses \u201cthe necessity of adopting immediate environmental measures, by spraying the floors with appropriate pesticides regularly and in an organized manner, coordinated with the timing of the displaced people\u2019s meals and sleep, as a first line of defense against the rodents that carry (Hanta), along with finding quick solutions to dispose of the waste through proper sorting and keeping it completely away from the tents\u2019 locations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On another note, Abu Rafe demands activating the role of international organizations, whose duty, according to his remarks, is to \u201csecure additional mobile toilets subject to continuous disinfection, and provide clean and sustainable sources of drinking and usage water, in addition to setting up specialized field clinics that provide recurrent medical consultations and periodic medicines, especially medicines for chronic diseases that help stabilize the health situation of the displaced, who have been deprived of their daily treatment routine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In return, the installation of these mobile toilets must be preceded by a precise geographical and engineering study to determine the channels for draining wastewater, in order to prevent the random dumping of sewage, and to avoid falling again into the trap of \u201crandom bathrooms\u201d that Lebanon experienced previously, specifically the environmental catastrophe that befell the course of the Litani River as a result of the flow of water from about 20,000 to 70,000 random toilets, according to the data and statistics of the National Litani River Authority \u2014 the terrifying model that everyone fears repeating today on Beirut\u2019s seafront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to the above, Abu Rafe offers a third solution, which is \u201cactivating intensive awareness programs inside the camp that urge personal hygiene (frequent handwashing with clean water), and avoiding direct mixing in large groups as much as possible, with the necessity of quick, immediate reporting when any disease symptoms appear, in order to prevent the spread of infection among the adjoining tents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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A photo showing the waste, which poses a danger to the displaced and to the environment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The medical warning: a fertile hotbed for epidemics and infection<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe bacteria of a single infected person are enough to transmit infection to the entire camp because of the severe overcrowding and the narrow spaces\u201d; with this warning, Dr. Samir Ghofari opens his explanation of the biological mechanism for the transmission of epidemics in such environments, confirming that \u201cthis severe environmental deterioration places the Biel camp on the brink of an imminent health catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Ghofari explains that serious and deadly diseases such as cholera and typhoid find in these gatherings an ideal environment for rapid spread through contaminated drinking water, or eating food prepared with unsafe water, or the absence of hand hygiene, especially when oversight is lacking and any mixing occurs between sewage water and daily-use water as a result of the complete absence of formal networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for the groups most affected by this reality, Dr. Ghofari confirms that \u201cchildren and the elderly are the most helpless link because of their weak immunity, and securing clean water for them has become a matter of life or death.\u201d According to his medical view, the danger is not limited to intestinal epidemics, but extends to contagious skin diseases such as scabies and fungal infections, which past wars in Lebanon revealed how quickly they spread in similar conditions that lack regular bathing and in which basic cleaning and disinfection materials are almost nonexistent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This grim medical scene is compounded by the crisis of the accumulation of solid waste beside the camp, which \u201craises the risks of the spread of rodents and insects such as flies and mosquitoes at record rates in the crowded surroundings, which portends a wave of acute respiratory and skin illnesses, especially as the residents resort to harsh options such as burning that waste to get rid of its annoying smells, so that the tent dwellers suffocate between the toxins of epidemics and the smoke of burning,\u201d Ghofari continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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