Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are facing Covid-19 alone
Ein El-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon
Hala Nouhad Nasreddine reports in Middle East Monitor:
A forecast by the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee and obtained exclusively by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) is that between 70 and 80 per cent of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are susceptible to Covid-19 infection. Despite this, the evidence suggests that the refugees are facing the pandemic more or less on their own.
As of 5 October, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) the total number of Covid-19 cases among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon was 1,282 with 478 active cases and 31 deaths. Based on these numbers, the General Director of the Rafic Hariri Government Hospital, Dr Firas Al-Abiad, tweeted that the Covid-19 mortality rate among Palestinians in Lebanon is 2.4 per cent, “more than double Lebanon’s 1 per cent rate.”
At the very least, it is estimated that 36,000 Palestinian refugees will need intensive care out of a total population of 224,901, which includes camp residents and Palestinian refugees from Syria, a statistic taken from the Committee’s document. Given that the mortality risk is higher for those aged 70 and over, around 10,825 Palestinians are already vulnerable.
Dr Hassan Mneimneh, a former education minister and the Committee’s Chairman, is seriously concerned about the difficulty of maintaining social distancing and limiting the spread of the virus. “Social distancing is impossible due to overcrowding in the camps,” he said. In Burj Barajneh camp, for example, the population density is 80,000 people/km2, meaning that camp residents share rooms with at least five and up to ten others.
Conditions are similar in Ein El-Hilweh camp, where seven to eight people live in small two-bedroom apartments, according to Adnan Al-Rifai, a member of the camp’s Popular Committee. “The danger is overwhelming and frightening, and the prospect of the virus spreading in the camps is truly catastrophic… our medical and healthcare facilities are limited,” he told ARIJ.