Nahr al-Bared refugee camp

An-Nahr al-Bared النهر البارد
Refugee camp
Nahr al-Bared, summer 2005
Country	Lebanon
Population
• Total	approx. 30,000

Nahr al-Bared (Arabic: نهر البارد, literally: Cold River) is a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, 16 km from the city of Tripoli. Some 30,000 displaced Palestinians and their descendants live in and around the camp, which was named after the river that runs south of the camp. Under the terms of the 1969 Cairo Agreement, the Lebanese Army does not conventionally enter the Palestinian camps, and internal security is provided by Palestinian factions.

The camp was established in December 1949 by the League of Red Cross Societies in order to accommodate the Palestinian refugees suffering from the difficult winter conditions in the Beqaa Valley and the suburbs of Tripoli. The camp was established outside any major Lebanese towns or settlements, which left Nahr al-Bared more isolated from the Lebanese society than many of the other camps in Lebanon. Despite this, due to its position on the main road to Syria and its proximity to the Syrian border, Nahr al-Bared grew to be a central commercial hub for the local Lebanese of the Akkar region.

Layout of the camp

Nahr al-Bared is located directly on the Mediterranean. It is made up of the "official" or "old" camp and the "unofficial" or "new" camp. The "old" camp is roughly 0.2 km² and is under the responsibility of UNRWA. The "new" camp extends mainly to the north of the old camp, but also to lesser degrees to the east and south. It is less densely populated and many wealthier families have built their homes there in recent years.

The camp is oblong shaped with the main road running straight through it (South to North), and the Souq running east to west. The different sectors of the camp are named after areas of what is now the northern Galilee region : Safourieh, Sasa, Safad, etc. Other sectors are more commonly known by the origins of the families living there: e.g. the "Maghrebi" area where families originally from Maghreb.

First fifty years

On 6 May 1979 an Israeli Air Force air strike killed four people and wounded twenty-five. An Israeli statement claimed the target was a PFLP stronghold. Radio Lebanon reported that the building hit was a farmer’s house.^[1]

2007 conflict

Late in the night of Saturday May 19, 2007, a building was surrounded by Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) in which a group of Fatah al-Islam militants accused of taking part in a bank robbery earlier that day were hiding. The ISF attacked the building early on Sunday May 20, 2007, unleashing a day-long battle between the ISF and Fatah al-Islam militants on 200 Street, Tripoli. As a response, members of Fatah al-Islam in Nahr al-Bared Camp (16 km from Tripoli) attacked an army checkpoint, killing several soldiers in their sleep. The army immediately responded by shelling the camp.

The camp became the centre of the fighting between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam. It sustained heavy shelling while under siege. Most of the inhabitants fled to the nearby Beddawi Palestinian refugee camp (doubling that camps population) or further south to Tripoli, Beirut and Saida. The last civilians (25 women and 38 children, the families of Fatah al-Islam members) were evacuated from the camp on Friday August 24, 2007.

The conflict between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam ended on Sunday September 2, 2007 with the Lebanese Army taking full control of the camp after eliminating the remaining terrorist pockets.^[2]

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, charged with the care of the Palestinians, struggled to contain the unprecedented humanitarian crisis. In the meantime, most of the displaced refugees waited in improvised shelters in Beddawi camp and elsewhere for a sustainable solution to arrive.^[3]

Nahr al-Bared was also home to the largest market in northern Lebanon; many Lebanese relied on the tax-free goods and black market prices to keep the cost of living down in a country with current inflation at 5.6%. The demise of Nahr al-Bared was a devastating blow to the local economy.^[4] The failure of the international community, and Arab states in particular, to fund an emergency humanitarian appeal for Nahr al-Bared means life for refugees living there is set to get harder.^[5]

See also

• Palestinian refugee camps
• Cairo Agreement

References

External links

Media related to Nahr al-Bared at Wikimedia Commons

• Lebanese struggle with broken economy, Don Duncan, The San Francisco Chronicle, March 23, 2008

34°30′47″N 35°57′40″E / 34.51306°N 35.96111°E / 34.51306; 35.96111

• v
• t
• e

Palestine refugee camps locations and populations as of 2015^[1]

Gaza Strip 518,000 UNRWA refugees	West Bank 188,150 UNRWA refugees	Syria 319,958 UNRWA refugees	Lebanon 188,850 UNRWA refugees	Jordan 355,500 UNRWA refugees
Al-Shati (Beach camp) 87,000 Bureij 34,000 Deir al-Balah 21,000 Jabalia 110,000 Khan Yunis 72,000 Maghazi 24,000 Nuseirat 66,000 Rafah 104,000 Canada closed	Aqabat Jaber 6,400 Ein as-Sultan 1,900 Far'a 7,600 Fawwar 8,000 Jalazone 11,000 Qalandia 11,000 Am'ari 10,500 Deir 'Ammar 2,400 Dheisheh 13,000 Aida 4,700 Al-Arroub 10,400 Askar 15,900 Balata 23,600 'Azza (Beit Jibrin) 1,000 Ein Beit al-Ma' (Camp No. 1) 6,750 Tulkarm 18,000 Nur Shams 9,000 Jenin 16,000 Shu'fat 11,000 Silwad Birzeit	Sabinah 22,600 Khan al-Shih 20,000 Nayrab 20,500 Homs 22,000 Jaramana 18,658 Daraa 10,000 Hama 8,000 Khan Danoun 10,000 Qabr Essit 23,700 Unofficial camps Ein Al-Tal 6,000 Latakia 10,000 Yarmouk 148,500	Bourj el-Barajneh 17,945 Ain al-Hilweh 54,116 El Buss 11,254 Nahr al-Bared 5,857 Shatila 9,842 Wavel 8,806 Mar Elias 662 Mieh Mieh 5,250 Beddawi 16,500 Burj el-Shemali 22,789 Dbayeh 4,351 Rashidieh 31,478 Former camps Tel al-Zaatar  ? Nabatieh  ?	Zarqa 20,000 Jabal el-Hussein 29,000 Amman New (Wihdat) 51,500 Souf 20,000 Baqa'a 104,000 Husn (Martyr Azmi el-Mufti camp) 22,000 Irbid 25,000 Jerash 24,000 Marka 53,000 Talbieh 8,000 Al-Hassan  ? Madaba  ? Sokhna  ?

References

1. ^ "Camp Profiles". unrwa.org. United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Retrieved 2 July 2015.