severus

"I saw people crying; including children.
My little cousin, she's nine, she saw a
guy die on the street today.

It's really crazy for children to see those things.

I can't concentrate now because the sight was so scary.
It's so, so bad.

For the last days it's just been war; we can't sleep.
- Ashraf, a Palestinian teacher living inside the camp.



I'm very interested in how to work with trauma and post-stress
esp. for refugee children. I find so little information about
these things. It's just horrifying to imagine what they go
through and what they see, with no help to cope.



Lebanon, right now.

The worst battles since 1990. People are fleeing their homes, they are
scared and traumatized and there are no water, medical care, no
electricity or any food supplies. People are hurt or dying.

There are 12 refugee camps in Lebanon. The Palestinian refugee camps
have 350,000 people. The army has since 1969 no right to enter them.
The refugees are isolated from society. This has been going on for 60
years. The refugees have no social or civil rights and limited access to
public health or educational facilities and NO access to public survice
services! How could that ever be a good thing. Because life is so hard in
the refugee camps and no one cares, it makes it 'easier' to find support
for extremists there some says - duh?!

Is the United States involved? Yes, of course. There's a deal worth $40
million and it's basically about trucks and spare parts for helicopters for
the Lebanese army. They sent Washington a request this Tuesday for
more military assistance. This deal is supposed to make sure that
Lebanon doesn't become a haven for terrorists.

And UN has been trying to negotiate a cease-fire so medical and food
supplies can get into the camps. The director for the Lebanese Red
Cross says they try to help those in need but that they are really limited
in what they can do amid the violence. It always makes me cry when
they set aid trucks on fire. UN aid has been forced to leave.

"The tanks and artillery they've been using are not very precise and when
you use them in areas which are so densely populated - and the camp
we're looking at is the second most densely populated camp in Lebanon
with 30,000 people over one square kilometre - it's going to be very hard
to avoid civilian casualties and actually they are not avoiding civilian
casualties." Human rights Watch representative, Houndry.