Dateline,
Robbed of a Homeland
Transcript
REPORTER (Translation): Hello, how are you? Hi.
CHILDREN: Hello.
Six years after war began in Syria, I've come to an unofficial refugee
camp in neighbouring Lebanon. I see the kids first. I used to be just like them
- running around with other Syrian kids many years ago.
REPORTER (Translation): How are you? Are you fine? How old
are you? How old are you?
KHADIJA (Translation): I am four.
Little Khadija is 4 years old the same age I was when my familiar live
left Syria, but in entirely different circumstances. My family left Syria
because my parents wanted a better life for their children. The kids in this
camp are nowhere near as lucky, stuck in a land that doesn't want them,
everything in short supply.
KHADIJA (Translation): Dad, I want water.
REPORTER (Translation): She wants water. Do you have water?
FATHER (Translation): We don’t have water.
Khadija is one of more than 500,000 Syrian kids who have fled to Lebanon
- officially. Unofficially, there could be twice as many. Lebanon hosts more
refugees per capita than any other country - which is why the government
stopped counting Syrian refugees a few years ago unable to cope with the
influx.
I grew in Syria never expecting it to descend into the chaos that we're
seeing it today and when you look around the camps just like these that are
dotted all around Lebanon, it's really heartbreaking
because there are children just like Khadija and all the kids around us now who
are missing out on the basics that were available to them in a country like
Syria.
With no end to the war in sight, Syrians - young and old - are dying
from treatable and preventable diseases. I wonder how you stay alive, let alone
stay hopeful, as your old life slides further and further away. Australian
paediatrician Annie Sparrow doesn't claim to have all the answers.
DR ANNIE SPARROW, PAEDIATRICIAN: If you didn't have bad
health to begin with, you're certainly going to get it here.
Every year she comes to Lebanon to help in any way she can, she's an
expert in humanitarian health crises. This year, she's already visited half a
dozen times.
DR ANNIE SPARROW: I started working on the war maybe five years
ago, I thought it would be for a year. But I come back because I can help in
many ways to meet the need that they have to meet
these terrific health challenges, and I come back to because the Syrians
themselves are fantastic and I love to work with them.
We're heading to the Bekaa Valley, home to an
estimated of one million Syrian refugees. In truth
no-one know it is real number. Many of the refugees are undocumented which
means they can't legally work and send their kids to school or travel to the
valley to get healthcare.
DR ANNIE SPARROW: Given that none of the refugee camps here are official
so they're not run the way that Zaatari or the other
camps are in Jordan where there are services set-up. So
the burden of child health is huge and same for adults too. Imagine they have
all the problems of the first world, so according to these we know, diabetes,
heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and they have all these problems we
can think of in developing countries, malnutrition, the infectious disease,
Typhoid, hepatitis, dysentery and on top of that they have all the trauma of
war.
While the international aid community is bogged down in bureaucracy,
Annie tells me about the thousands of Syrians losing hope because they can't
get basic medicine for common diseases like diabetes. On our first house call,
we're about to meet a diabetic patient. We're being introduced by a local aid
worker, Dr Beshr Alkhateeb.
Asra is 17.
DR ANNIE SPARROW: Asra, my name is
Annie. I’m a doctor.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB, MULTI AID PROGRAMS (Translation): Please
have a seat.
We're surrounded by Middle Eastern hospitality, and Asra
slowly opens up about her struggle with diabetes.
DR ANNIE SPARROW: So even though it was difficult, you could still
access treatment and had no problems.
ASRA (Translation): I got used to the situation. I
have been like this since I was little. It’s okay, it makes no difference. I
was two years old when I became sick so I am used to it.
After three year as a refugee in Lebanon, Asra is once manageable diabetes could now see her lose
something very precious.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB (Translation): But you were going to
school…
ASRA (Translation): Yes, I was at school in Syria.
REPORTER (Translation): What has changed?
ASRA (Translation): Here I couldn’t go because my eye sight
is deteriorating and I can’t go. There was a period of time
when I had no medication, so I used to take it once a day.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB (Translation): This period…
ASRA (Translation): It was not enough.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB (Translation): When?
ASRA (Translation): We tried to ration it.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB (Translation): Was this last year or two or
three years ago?
ASRA (Translation): Last year.
DR ANNIE SPARROW: It's often very hard because the eyes are not
equal and because the poor blood sugar control means there's often blurriness.
But, um... You know, her vision is going to change from - often from day-to-day
particularly if she's not getting regular insulin.
But Asra has had to ration her insulin since
she came to Lebanon, highlights a health system that can't cope. In their bear
living room, no-one can bring themselves to talk about the future. And what
must be Asra's biggest fear - whether she'll lose her
sight all together. The strain shows, especially on her mother. With
heavy hearts, we leave Asra and her family.
REPORTER (Translation): What really worried me about meeting
Asra, obviously her diabetes is having a massive
impact on her life but you could tell her mental health was also affected by
it.
DR ANNIE SPARROW: Of course. It's entirely normal to be depressed.
It's catastrophic, she's losing her sight, which is about the most precious
thing we all have, and she knows it's just a dream for us, it's blurry, it's
deteriorating and without that, she's - she has a 17-year-old girl whose future
is just not dim right now, it's dark and terrifying.
Annie has come to tend of her visit to Lebanon. But I plan to meet Asra again tomorrow at a doctor's clinic where hopefully
she'll get more news about the state of her eyesight.
Wow, it's crowded in here, there's dozens of people, there’s clearly a lot
of need in this area. I find Dr Beshr Alkhateeb who was with us at Asra's
apartment. Today, he's running around trying to deal with all these patients.
REPORTER: So how many patients do you see here everyday?
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: I think everyday we have
between 150 to 200 patients.
REPORTER: Wow.
This clinic is run by Syrians for Syrians. Beshr
also had to flee war, but instead of emigrating further away, he chooses to
stay close by in Lebanon to help his fellow Syrian refugees.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: People trust more the Syrian physicians
because they are the same culture, they're doctors inside Syria, and now when
they come here, still the same doctors and still they know their patients.
Beshr is about to see Asra. Inside the consultation room, we find her and her mum
putting on brave faces. Asra's type one diabetes
means her body doesn't produce insulin. A finger prick test will let doctors
know how bad things are.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: I think it's 20/40 here, this means it's hyperglycemic.
Asra’s blood sugar levels
are more than double what they should be.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: She is fasting, so it is a high number for a
fasting blood glucose.
REPORTER: Oh really?
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: Yeah, it’s 240.
REPORTER: What should it be?
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: It should be below 125.
REPORTER: Wow, okay!
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: so it’s really high.
REPORTER: So, that’s a dramatic increase. What does that
mean?
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: That means she's not controlling her disease.
Because of the diabetes, yes, side effects of diabetes. So
Dr Ramez was telling us that because of diabetes, she
gets an injury in the retina, in her eyes, she had a bleeding, a haemorrhage in
both eyes, left and right eyes, the left eye is more haemorrhagic than the
right one.
She is seeing an ophthalmologist and she needs surgery in both
eyes. The problem is that the surgery’s cost is high. Each eye needed
like $4500, yes, so it’s a big amount of money for refugees.
$9,000 to fix Asra's eyesight an impossible
amount of money for her family, now, I understand why no-one was talking about
the future yesterday.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: The situation will be deterioration and
she will go blind at home.
REPORTER (Translation): How is your eyesight now?
ASRA (Translation): Thank God, it’s alright but blurry.
REPORTER (Translation): Now are you going home? What are you
going to do at home?
ASRA (Translation): I’m going home and I will stay at home
and when the Azhan (call to prayer) starts, I will
pray.
Asra may have escaped the
bombs of Syria, but for so many chronically sick Syrian kids like her,
surviving in Lebanon is becoming just as uncertain. Another diabetic child of
war arrives at the clinic and he's not well at all. In fact, the blood tests reveals 14-year-old Abboudi is minutes
away from slipping into a coma. They rush to put him on a glucose drip.
REPORTER: How long does the process take?
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: This will take like 15 minutes.
REPORTER: Okay. And then after about 15 minutes his blood glucose
levels will return to normal.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: Yes, he should be like normal.
REPORTER: So he's pretty lucky that
something like this happened here?
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: Yeah, he's so lucky because we can just
manage it immediately.
REPORTER: What would happen if he was at home?
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: If he didn't notice that and his parents
didn't notice, he may be in a coma.
This simple glucose drip is potentially saving Abboudi's
life. But it turns out that his unusually pale skin is a sign of another
problem.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: If he doesn’t control his blood glucose level,
the kidney failure may be worse and he may go through the hemo-dialysis,
and hemo-dialysis for refugees in Lebanon it’s a
disaster. It will cost him about 1200 or 1300 dollars per month.
As refugees, Abboudi's family will never be
able to afford dialysis for their son.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: He maybe can stay for a week or two weeks
without dialysis but then he may die.
REPORTER: So we're talking about life or death
situation.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: Yeah, that's it.
Abboudi's dad arrives just
after the drama has passed.
DR BESHR ALKHATEEB: Yeah, it’s a life or death situation.
I wonder if frightening moments like these are just part of life for the
family? It turns out Abboudi and his dad, Mahmoud,
share the burden of diabetes together. Mahmoud also has type one diabetes, both
father and son have an easily treatable condition, but one of them is losing
the battle.
REPORTER (Translation): How are you? How are you
darling? Hello, how are you Abboudi? Aere you better now? Yeah? You are eating, that is good.
Are you still unwell?
ABBOUDI (Translation): No.
REPORTER (Translation): How did you feel before?
ABBOUDI (Translation): I felt faint, I collapsed, I couldn’t
take it anymore, I was very hungry.
Good to see Abboudi eating with his family.
They have got rice, potatoes and some yoghurt, much better now than he was when
we saw him at the hospital earlier, which was pretty scary.
REPORTER (Translation): You are better, right?
ABBOUDI (Translation): Better.
REPORTER (Translation): Better than before?
Their meal is high in carbohydrates, not ideal for a diabetic. In all likelihood, it is because they have no choice. Most
of their meagre income goes towards rent on this apartment.
MAHMOUD, SYRIAN REFUGEE (Translation): In Syria, I didn’t
feel that I was diabetic, it was like I don’t have diabetes over there in my
country and I was happy. Then we came here and things have changed.
Mahmoud takes me up to the rooftop for a quiet talk. The shadow of their
past life looms over them constantly. Syria is just a few kilometres away.
MAHMOUD (Translation): You know, Syria’s over there.
REPORTER (Translation): Over there? What do you think of when you
are looking over there?
MAHMOUD (Translation): What I think, I wish I could fly and
be in Syria. In Syria, we were living happily, for instance, if my son got
sick, I would take him to any hospital, free. They would not charge us.
Everything was available, schools were available, everything, free medication,
everything. Praise be to God, we were happy. It is very hard to see your
country destroyed, one’s country is like one’s child. So, it is as if I had
lost one of my children, when your country is gone, you are worthless. If we have to do dialysis, first of all I would do it for him, at
the end of the day, it would be a must. As for the money, I can’t afford
it at all.
You can almost see the weight on his shoulders. While Lebanon struggles
to treat chronic diabetesics like Abboudi
and Asra, there's potentially a much bigger crisis
looming - the threat of contagious disease. So while
Lebanon may not want Syrian refugees to stay, it knows it can't ignore them.
REPORTER: Can't be easy staying healthy in camps like these - just
seeing some open sewage right by a tent, someone's home, there are kids running
around everywhere, playing with anything they find. It must be a real challenge
to raise a family here.
One of the little girls I meet in the camp leads me to her family's
tent.
REPORTER (Translation): Hello, how are you? My name is
Sarah.
NESRINE (Translation): How are you?
REPORTER (Translation): Hello. Hello. How are you?
Sham is one of five children being raised alone by her Nesrine, her mother, Nesrine, a
widow.
REPORTER: In the five years you have been in Lebanon, has anyone
of the family gotten sick?
NESRINE (Translation): Yes, but ordinary ailments. Thank God it’s not the very bad stages. For instance,
jaundice, my children have jaundiced, so I treat them my way. Dates are the best
for jaundice.
Keeping kids physically healthy is hard enough. Gauging their mental
health must be even more difficult. Nesrine says her
older kids who knew a life before the war seem to be coping. It's her younger
kids she worries about most, like Sham.
CHILD (Translation): My sister Wesam,
my sister Wiaam, my brother Mohamed.
NESRINE (Translation): The war impacted on my children and
me both positively and negatively. It wasn’t all negative. The positive
was that I became stronger so I can protect my children. Negative because
I got out of my country and emigrated and we got lost in the mazes of this
world. It separated us from our family and our country.
My children are my whole world. I hope they have a future. Not to
be lost in the vortex we are in now. I hope they get their rights like
all the other children and that they will study and achieve something, that
they live in a house at least. The nightmare of the tent is very nasty for
us. The little one is starting to ask me, ‘Why don’t we live in a house?’
I feel very sad and distressed for her.
Even though Syria still dominates the news headlines, Syria's refugees
in Lebanon are very much a forgotten people. And Lebanon has become a land of
lost Syrian dreams. Asra tells me what she would do
if she could see properly.
ASRA (Translation): If I can see? I’d go to
school. I would learn. I would read novels. I would watch
television. I would at least choose my own change of clothes. I
love school and I wanted to be a teacher, a teacher for children, to look after
them too. This is what I wanted to be but none of this is
happening. I need to be able to see with my eyes because a woman my age
should be able to see. But I can’t see.
Coming to Lebanon and meeting Mahmoud, I think about the worries all
Syrian fathers must have. My father got the life he was hoping for for his children when we left Syria years ago. I'm not sure
Mahmoud gets to dream that big anymore.
MAHMOUD (Translation): What can I say? Big worries.
Big family. Little income. My son is sick. This is more important
than having no money, more important than the money. Second, there is no
money. What can I say?
reporter
sarah abo
story producer
ronan sharkey
camera
clayton carpenter
associate producer
kelly hawke
local producer
patricia bou nassif
editors
micah mcgown
simon phegan
david potts
translations
dalia matar
sanae ouahib
22nd August 2017