“Lately, death has been in front of me,” says Agram. He is in his late 20s and is standing in front of a tour bus in downtown Beirut that doesn't look like it's still running, he looks so worn out. But for Agram, the choice of transportation is the least of his problems that day. Eight years ago he fled the war in Syria to Lebanon, and now he is fleeing the war in Lebanon back where he came from – like around 400,000 other Syrians. They are all going back to a country where the situation is different than it was back then, but by no means better, because death can appear in front of them there just as suddenly as in Beirut.
Agram lived here with friends for eight years and worked at a gas station, which was barely enough. Many hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled to Lebanon in recent years, but this country already has enough problems of its own, and more and more have been added: the economic crisis, the explosion in the port, the corona epidemic. For Agram, it was still better than staying in Syria, where he earned nothing and would have been forcibly recruited by the Assad regime for military service that could last forever. He was so afraid of that that he stayed in Beirut, even though life here was becoming increasingly difficult, jobs were becoming rarer and the prejudices of many Lebanese were becoming ever greater. Since the Israelis began attacking Beirut from the air a month ago, he thought about leaving. When his house was hit two days ago, the decision was clear.
“I only take back what I have with me,” says Agram
Very close to Agram and the old coach there is an obelisk in a large roundabout. The monument honors the father of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Hafiz al-Assad himself ruled Syria for three decades and heavily interfered in the affairs of neighboring Lebanon. His son did the same; his regime is said to have been involved in the assassination of Lebanon's head of state Rafik al-Hariri in 2005, who was blown up by a car bomb. Afterwards, many Lebanese were very angry, they took to the streets and chased the Syrian troops out of the country. Just a few years later, the civil war in Syria began and hundreds of thousands of refugees came to the country, which itself is barely making ends meet. “They are taking everything away from us,” says a Lebanese bus driver who makes his living taking Syrians across the border.
“I only take back what I have with me,” says Agram. He was at work when his home in southern Beirut was hit. The Israeli army often warns in advance which buildings it will soon hit because Hezbollah facilities would be located there. But sometimes not. More than a million people have already fled the bombs, many, like Agram, have lost everything. He couldn't even get his papers out of the rubble; he only has a copy of his passport in his phone and $180 for the trip, $80 for the bus, and $100 for the forced exchange at the border, which the Syrian regime uses to top up its foreign currency. Perhaps Agram is about to be arrested and thrown into the army, doing exactly what he fled eight years earlier. But now Agram just shrugs his shoulders and gets on the bus that drives away with him, past the Assad monument to the north, into a future from which he expects nothing.
Ali's wife and children are already back in Raqqa. He still stays to make money
A few meters away, Mahmut Ibrahim Ali sits on his scooter. In front of him lie his family's belongings in large black plastic bags, clothing, blankets and mattresses. The 34-year-old has to pay around $300 for a bus to take everything to his old home, where his wife and five children fled ten days ago after their apartment was destroyed. The buses drive over the mountains to the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, where they can no longer go beyond Masnaa because the Israelis have bombed the road. A bus driver explains that the passengers had to walk past the bomb crater with their luggage.
A report from this Friday shows how dangerous the journey through the area is: According to the Israeli military, three people were also killed in an air strike on the Juziya border crossing in the Bekaa Valley. The crossing is no longer passable. At the Masnaa crossing, buses bound for Damascus are waiting on the other side of the crater, as the bus driver assures us.
From there we go to the various parts of the country where the major battles are over, but the fighting continues: In Idlib, the Russians are bombing rebels and Islamists, Turkey is attacking in the north, Iranian militias and Bedouins are fighting with or against each other Islamic State is getting stronger again.
Mahmut Ibrahim Ali's sacks will have to be reloaded several times along the way before they reach Raqqa, a city that was probably hit harder than any other in Syria. For four years, Raqqa was the capital of the IS caliphate, from which Ali and his family also fled. Now his wife and children are back there, he himself still remains in Beirut. “At home I would only earn 50 dollars a month, we can't live on that.” In Beirut he drives his scooter to bring dental supplies to dentists' offices. Things are still going well, even though Israel is bombing the Lebanese capital more and more often. He doesn't want to go back home yet because he could be drafted into the army on the way there.
There is a great willingness to help in Beirut. Hardly anyone helps the Syrians
In Raqqa itself, Ali belongs to the Sunni minority; the city is controlled by Kurds, who have founded an autonomous republic in northeast Syria. If he sends his children to school there, they will only be taught in Kurdish – and if the Assad regime ever takes over Raqqa, they would be considered traitors. That's why Ali is having his children educated at home for the time being.
Ali no longer has a home in Beirut, his apartment is destroyed and his savings have been lost. He sleeps with friends and with others every day because he doesn't want to be a burden to anyone. Not the friends and not the country, which is increasingly drawn into the Middle East war. The state is weak, but solidarity is still great, tens of thousands of volunteers cook and collect clothes, donate tents and also help the numerous migrants from Africa who were simply thrown out onto the streets by their employers.
There is hardly any help left for the Syrians; many Lebanese hold them partly responsible for all the problems. Mahmut Ibrahim Ali still wants to stay as long as possible. He doesn't see any other perspective.
