 BEIRUT: Rebuilding the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp will cost around $400 million and will take two to three years, Ambassador Khalil Makkawi, head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, told The Daily Star Friday. The Lebanese government and Palestinian representatives will ask the international community to pay the reconstruction bill at a donor conference on June 23 in Vienna, and Makkawi said he believed donors would embrace the project.
"We have a very strong case, and there is great sympathy and support for Lebanon and the Palestinians," he said. "I'm confident that the international community will come forward."
| Paging Uncle Sugar, Uncle Sugar to the white courtesy phone ... |
The camp - officially home to more than 31,000 Palestinians - was largely destroyed in the three-month battle last summer between Fatah al-Islam Islamists and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). Estimates released at a donor conference last September 10 put the bill for rebuilding the camp, as well as for repairing six surrounding Lebanese communities and providing interim relief aid, at about $382 million. Makkawi said the final costs would be "in the neighborhood of $400 million."
| Don't we have a UN something for this ... |
"The timetable that has been put [to complete the reconstruction] is between two to three years, maximum," he added.
The Lebanese government will formally call the Vienna conference, and Makkawi said the ongoing formation of a new cabinet would not affect the conference or the rebuilding plans. "Any government which comes will follow the path of the previous one," Makkawi said. "Since Siniora is back - business as usual," Makkawi added, referring to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora being nominated Wednesday to cobble together the national unity government.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides services to Palestinian refugees throughout the region, will be responsible for the renovation of the old camp, a ring-shaped area bordered by the Mediterranean Sea and the site of the original refugee camp, which had long outgrown its UN-mandated borders. The old camp, with dense construction and narrow roads, was the hardest-hit area of the camp in the 15 weeks of fighting.
| Mainly because the Paleo 'fighters' hid amongst the wimmins and children ... |
The battle displaced all the camp's inhabitants, about half of whom took shelter in schools in the neighboring Beddawi refugee camp and the village of Beddawi. About half of the residents of the new camp - the area closest to the coastal highway which was damaged in the conflict - have returned to reside there, although some are not living in their original homes, Makkawi said.
| Send them to Gaza, they'll realize how stoopid they were to fight the Lebs ... |
UNRWA is providing rent subsidies of $200 per month to more than 3,000 families of the camp's official count of 5,449 resident families, UNRWA has said. In the new camp, UNRWA has also thrown up about 570 prefabricated, six-meter-by-three-meter metal housing units without air conditioning. UNRWA has been taking measures to reduce the temperature in the metal housing units, such as installing bathroom tiles and putting up concrete to reduce the structures' exposure to the sun, said UNRWA public information officer Hoda Samra Souaiby.
The condition of the displaced is "much, much better than what it was previously," Makkawi said. "All of them are - one way or another - housed. These people will not be happy until they really go back to the camp," he added.
| How about building it in Mauritania ... |
UNRWA has also erected three prefabricated schools for students from families who resided in Nahr al-Bared, although some students are still attending schools in two shifts - one group has classes in the morning and early afternoon, while a different group attends class in the afternoon and early evening, Samra Souaiby added.
Some of those who have returned to Nahr al-Bared are suffering from eye problems because of the dust emanating from the rubble left after the battle, said a Palestinian resident of the camp who requested anonymity. The hot weather combined with the living conditions has caused skin rashes among some of those inhabiting the battered camp, she added. Two cases of typhoid have also been reported, she said.
| Warts, hangnails, bunions, all sorts of maladies ... |
The "biggest problem" facing the returnees are regular disputes with the LAF members controlling access to the camp, she said. |