ReportingDriven by the lack of prospects, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have plunged into the breach opened by the Belarusian authorities, which for months facilitated the arrival of migrants from the Middle East. Before, for some, to turn back.
Nothing went as Amer had imagined. Like thousands of unfortunate people in the Middle East, this Palestinian from Lebanon, father of four children, saw the stopover in Minsk as a safer route than crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe. The “intermediary” who had provided him with a visa and plane ticket at a gold price assured him: everything would be simple, there would be a smuggler on either side of the border between Belarus and Poland. “There weren’t many images of violence when I got on the plane”, says Amer, 47, who resides in Al-Jalil camp, at the entrance to Baalbek, in eastern Lebanon. It was in October. Left with two friends, this house painter turned back November 7: in Belarus, where the authorities have created from scratch a migration crisis intended to put pressure on the EU, he has encountered nothing but scams and anguish.
It is in the small family accommodation, fitted out in a former barracks of the French army with decrepit staircases, that he delivers his story. Souzane, his wife, interrupts the preparation of lunch and storms. “I didn’t want Amer to come back like that, he should have waited, tried to cross the border, others have succeeded!” Now we have the same problems as before, and more debts! ” Amer, who has borrowed money to travel, does not flinch. Neighbors also criticized him. Others thought he was right to come back, in the face of danger.
In two weeks, Amer has chained the setbacks. The trafficker he is in contact with in Minsk postpones the plans and raises the stakes. Then he leads them, he and his friends, to a house near the border, where he locks them up, promising them an imminent crossing of the forest bordering Poland. In the end, a man escorts them back to Minsk, manu militari. “We started to be afraid. “ Money is dwindling. At the border, the migrants are transformed into pawns by the Belarusian military, facing the Polish forces. Violence is increasing. Convinced that the passage is now impossible, not having enough dollars to secure a “good” ferryman, Amer opts for a return to Lebanon with his two companions in misfortune. Ultimate humiliation: they have to pay a fine at the airport, because of the expiry of their visa, before buying a Minsk-Istanbul-Beirut ticket.
The stage in Minsk, from which he intended to reach Italy, seek asylum there and then bring in his family, was his fourth attempt to reach the Old Continent. In the past he had tried via Turkey and Egypt. His obsession: to offer a ” good education “ to his children. The plight of Palestinian refugees is a golden windfall for traffickers. Descendants of the populations expelled at the creation of Israel in 1948, they are deprived of many rights in Lebanon and have been forgotten in the attempts to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For many, the economic and financial crisis that is knocking over the land of the Cedars is the hammer blow too many.
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