Stranded in Lebanon, Sierra Leone women shelter from war in warehouse

Displaced African migrant workers cook a meal at a warehouse, turned into a shelter by a group of volunteers to house migrant workers who fled Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon, in the eastern suburbs of Beirut amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)

Displaced African migrant workers seek refuge at a warehouse, turned into a shelter by a group of volunteers to house migrant workers who fled Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon, in the eastern suburbs of Beirut amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)

BEIRUT: Not far from Beirut’s heavily bombed southern suburbs, Jaiatu Koroma and her five-month-old daughter have taken refuge along with dozens of women from Sierra Leone in a dilapidated warehouse turned shelter.
After Israeli forces began heavily striking Lebanon around a month ago, Koroma, 21, from Freetown, said she strapped her young child to her back and fled her home in south Beirut, initially sleeping “in the streets.”
She eventually was taken to the volunteer-run shelter — an old concrete structure on the outskirts of Beirut now filled with mattresses, bed covers and hastily packed suitcases, as well as a donated baby crib and change table.
Wearing a red beanie, she expressed gratitude that she and her baby were now getting “food, water,” nappies and a place to sleep.
A year of deadly cross-border exchanges between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict escalated to all-out war on September 23, with Israel heavily striking Hezbollah strongholds in south and east Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The bombardment has sent more than one million people fleeing, according to Lebanese authorities, with at least 2,546 people killed in a year of violence, more than half of them in the past month.
At the graffitied building — an empty venue called The Shelter, usually hired out for events — women sat on mattresses talking, resting, praying or doing each other’s hair.
Others carried laundry in plastic tubs to and from a washing area, where lines of brightly colored clothes were hung up to dry in a dark, damp room.
Waiting to return home
“I want to return to my country,” said Koroma, as the sound of chatter echoed around the derelict space.
She said she worked for months but her employment agent took her earnings and she got “nothing,” adding that the agent also had her passport.
Jaward Gbondema Borniea from the Sierra Leone consulate in Beirut said that “a huge number of our citizens... have been stranded.”
Scores of migrants from Sierra Leone travel to Lebanon every year for work, with the aim of supporting families back home.
Migrant workers are employed under Lebanon’s controversial “kafala” sponsorship system, which rights groups have repeatedly said facilitates exploitation, with persistent reports of abuse, unpaid wages and long work hours.
Borniea said the consulate was working to provide emergency travel documents for the most vulnerable, and collaborating with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to facilitate repatriations.
Mathieu Luciano, the IOM’s head of office in Beirut, said the United Nations agency had received “15,000 requests from migrants and their embassies for return assistance,” including 1,300 who hail from Sierra Leone.
The UN agency estimates that “approximately 17,500 migrants... have been displaced” by the war, Luciano told AFP, out of around 180,000 migrants residing in Lebanon before the crisis.
Dea Hage Chahine, among a handful of volunteers running the warehouse shelter, said that “when we started 21 days ago, we hosted 60 women. We are at 175 now.”
“We’re working non-stop,” she said, adding that some of the women require medical or psychological assistance.
“The hardest thing is... the number of women coming in every day is increasing.”
Life on hold
The volunteer said she secured the space after finding women camped outside the Sierra Leone consulate, who had later been kicked out of a government shelter to make way for Lebanese families.
The volunteers have set up a kitchen, subscribed to a patchy power generator system, installed some lights and arranged water deliveries for washing and showering.
The are also running an online fundraising campaign to help cover the women’s journeys home and associated expenses, Hage Chahine said, noting many “don’t have their passports.”
She blamed the kafala system and an “inherited education of racism” for the lack of support for migrant workers, saying they were often treated as “second-class humans.”
Among those hoping to leave is Susan Baimda, 37, who said she came to the shelter two weeks earlier “because of the fighting.”
“The situation is very rough,” said Baimda, but in the shelter, “it’s very fine now.”
“Everybody is taking care of us,” she added as she and others helped prepare large quantities of pasta salad for dinner.
She has four children back home in Freetown, and has only seen them via video call since she came to Lebanon three years ago.
“Let me go back to them” and “to our country,” she said.
“We are tired of the fighting... we want to save (our) lives,” Baimda added.