BEIRUT, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- "We were doomed to suffer since we fled the war in Syria to southern Lebanon, where we were looking for security and safety but only reaped poverty and death," Khodor Hamid, a refugee from the northern Syrian province of Idlib, expressed his discontent with the painful reality faced by those like him living in the border area of southern Lebanon.
Repairing his tent damaged by Israeli attacks in the Marjeyoun Plain in southeastern Lebanon, Hamid told Xinhua he was harvesting tomatoes and cucumbers in early August when an Israel drone launched a missile, injuring three of his children and causing severe damage to his tent.
"We became victims of the fierce confrontations between Israel and Hezbollah. Many of us were martyred and wounded, and we fear further escalation in confrontations," he said.
Jamal Abdel Nour, displaced from Syria's northern province of Aleppo to Lebanon's Wazzani village, told Xinhua he is unable to flee to safer areas due to poverty, lack of assistance from donors, and absence of accommodation centers for displaced Syrians.
"We do not know where to escape from this hell," he said, adding that municipalities in nearby villages refuse to receive new displaced Syrians, and the displaced camps are overcrowded and cannot accommodate new displaced people.
"If we succeed in moving to other places, we will remain unemployed, unable to secure a living for our families," he said, fearing that an escalation of regional tensions will turn his fate and that of his fellow Syrian refugees further ambiguous.
According to Lebanese medical and security sources, 19 Syrian refugees in the border area in southern Lebanon, including eight children and a woman, have been killed and another 32 wounded amid Israeli artillery shells and drone missiles.
Wael Ghanem, displaced from Aleppo to Naqoura in southwestern Lebanon, told Xinhua how four members of the Hajji family were killed in southwestern Lebanon's village of Chamaa.
"When the mother of the Hajji family and her children returned from their work in one of the fields, they all sat down to eat dinner, and suddenly a missile fell on them, turning their rented house into rubble and ashes, and the mother and her children into pieces," Ghanem said.
Municipal statistics and data from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) showed that there are currently around 90,000 displaced Syrians in southern Lebanon.
UNHCR and its partners have prepared emergency relief items for the displaced, including Lebanese and other nationalities, in case of an escalation of hostilities, a source at the UN agency, who spoke anonymously, told Xinhua, adding that the agency has also provided water, shelters and cash assistance for Lebanese and refugees, mostly Syrians.
"The current hostilities in southern Lebanon and any possible further escalation -- in addition to the current social and economic situation -- create challenges for all groups, all of whom equally deserve to be provided with security and dignity," the source said.
However, Ziad Ouaini, another Syrian refugee, told Xinhua no family has received the financial assistance allocated by the UN to 10,000 displaced Syrians in southern Lebanon.
"We are trying to contact the United Nations offices to inquire, but we have not found an answer yet," he said. ■
