‘Only hope is to go home’: Israeli assault on Lebanon maroons large population of migrant workers
Labourers, many from Asia and Africa, are dependent on their employers and have been left stranded with no documents or resources to get out of the country.
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Cici Brinces came to Lebanon as a domestic worker 14 years ago, married a Palestinian, had a son, survived leukaemia and was building a new life. Then bombs began falling in Beirut and now she wants to go home to the Philippines.
“I feel that the end is near for me – worse than when I had cancer,” said Brinces, 46, who fled her home near the airport two weeks ago and lived on the streets for days before moving into a shelter with her 10-year-old son.
Nazmul Shahin, who works at a supermarket in Beirut’s Achrafieh neighbourhood, says explosions jolt him awake at night.
“My heart begins pounding – and it feels like something is gnawing at my entrails,” the 30-year-old Bangladeshi citizen, who has been living in Lebanon for about a year, told Context in a phone interview from Beirut.
Md Al Mamun loves the job he got at a Beirut bakery three months ago, but now he too wants to go home to Bangladesh.
“I really like it here – the pay and the environment are so much better – but since the bombing began, I have been badly missing home,” he said.
A nearly year-long conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group has intensified in recent weeks, with Israel bombing southern Lebanon,...
