By Zeina Karam
The Associated Press
Friday 25 May 2007

Palestinian families with bags of clothes are crowded into hallways and classrooms at a boy's school in this refugee camp, where some rooms are now home to up to 50 people.

There is not enough food, and many refugees arrived without their medicine or identity cards. It's not clear how long these "double refugees" will have to stay - their own camp is under siege, caught between Islamic militants inside and the Lebanese army outside.

The Palestinians of Beddawi are doing what they can to help the 12,000 newcomers, donating food and blankets. "Welcome to our guests," read a banner at the Kawkaba boy's school.

But chaos erupted when a white van brought donated lunches to the school on Thursday, and desperate refugees lunged forward, pushing and shoving to grab food.

"We didn't get any breakfast, my son is hungry," shouted Fathia Abdel-Rahim as she argued with a volunteer who wanted her to stand in line.

Beddawi was already home to 20,000 Palestinians, and has been overwhelmed by the influx from the Nahr el-Bared camp three miles away. Some of the newcomers are making do in Beddawi's six schools, its hospitals, clinics and mosques; others moved in with relatives at the camp.

Ahmed Chaaban, the Kawkaba school's director, said there are serious shortages and aid agencies need to send more help. He warned that a shortage of toilets and clean water could lead to the spread of disease.

"Many of them are sick, they have heart and blood pressure problems and for that they need daily medication which they don't have," Chaaban said.

Some people left Nahr el-Bared without identity cards, he said. "They have nothing to identify themselves with. This is a big problem."

"The situation is more difficult that anyone realizes," he said.

It's not known how long Beddawi will have to support the newcomers, who cannot return home until the siege is resolved - either by negotiation or a military assault on Nahr el-Bared camp near the northern city of Tripoli.

There are some 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, those who left after Israel's creation in 1948 and their descendants. About half live in poverty in 12 refugee camps that are like small towns, with two- or three-story buildings on narrow streets alongside mosques, schools and businesses.

Officials from the U.N. relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA, registered the new arrivals at Beddawi, and distributed mattresses and other aid. But the new arrivals said there was not enough to go around.

In one of Kawkaba's classrooms, Yasmina Abdel-Al, 28, was worried about her 9-month-old son, Bassem.

"He is so fragile, he was coughing and crying all night. I don't know what's wrong. Maybe he's teething but I have no medicine for him," she said as the baby, wearing a white cotton onesie with food dribble on it, played in her arms. "I have no change of clothes for him," she said.

"I wished to give him a better life," her husband, Samer, said of their son. "But we are Palestinians after all.... It seems this is the fate of everyone who is Palestinian."

The family hastily left their home in Nahr el-Bared at 1 a.m. Tuesday aboard a pickup truck.

"There was sniper fire that night and I was terrified for my family. Would you believe, I forgot my mother? If something happens to her I will never forgive myself," he said.

In the classroom next door, frustrated children screamed for attention. One girl played with a grown-up's slippers. Another munched on potato chips as she sat cross-legged on the floor.

"I spent the night on cardboard without a sheet or blanket," said Alia Barakeh, 48, who came to Beddawi on Wednesday with her husband and eight children. She said she has had nothing to eat but bread and a little cheese for two days - she gave her children most of the family's food allotment.

"They bring us food every now and then, but there just isn't enough for everyone - and it's disorganized," Barakeh said. "Whether you receive anything or not is just a matter of luck."