These countries have attracted Lebanese for years. People from North Lebanon were the first emigrants; the largest number of these were people for whom job opportunities had declined, as development in their regions came to a standstill. The state, meanwhile, was present with its soldiers and security plans, while the north has experienced no calm since the eruption of the crisis in Syria. A number of young men joined groups fighting in that country and embarked on journeys of jihad in several Syrian cities. Lebanon’s security agencies began to monitor the movements of many young men. Nevertheless, this group of people is part of a situation that has not spread to all parts of the country.
The repercussions of several dozen rounds of fighting in Tripoli between gunmen from the neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen harmed the city’s economy; it affected the economic role of Tripoli, which has experienced an unprecedented deterioration.
Hundreds of establishments have closed their doors and the clashes have forced a number of merchants to relocate outside the city. The drop in commercial activity has paralyzed all of the economic sectors of the city and surrounding areas, meaning the freezing of thousands) of job opportunities; unemployment has risen and the socio-economic crisis has become worse.
Young men in the north are being squeezed. All of their movements are being monitored and their cities’ economies are struggling under the weight of paralysis affecting all of the surrounding regions. They have no options – and are facing despair with only the sea at their back; they have chosen the sea to take them to the shores of safety.
Their dreams are small, and modest; these young people have nevertheless become a burden on their city. They have packed their dreams and put them in their suitcases on their huge adventure, which might be their last. They have chased a dream of having a homeland that gives them names, and not numbers, one in which they do not become weapons in battles and ballot papers on election day.
Today, the city of Tripoli is hemorrhaging its young people, as part of a phenomenon that hasn’t been witnessed seen since the end of the Civil War a quarter-century ago.
Thousands of them have left. They have chosen the sea to search for a new land that does not feed them despair and deprivation from the time they are born. They regard themselves as dead in their own country, but dream that they will be reborn elsewhere, in a moment of folly, perhaps.
They dream of choosing the way they die. They don’t want to be killed by a stray bullet, an explosion, or a battle with Jabal Mohsen, or in the battles of Syria, which have lured fighting groups there in the hundreds, as young men are recruited to serve in their ranks.
They dream of a petty job, to make enough money to eat what they want, instead of filling their mouths with potatoes and grains, the types of which their plates have come to know by heart.
They dream of making enough money to rescue them from having to rely on political parties, religious sects, and armed groups, which are funded by the local political leaders.
Tripoli’s politicians are observing the spread of this phenomenon but they answer by saying «these people have no horizons in their cities; Lebanon won’t exit its state of paralysis before the war in Syria ends… The Lebanese state’s priority today is to preserve security and stability, to avoid the spark of the next-door conflagration.»
Young people who have chosen to leave don’t hide the fact that by seeking refuge in a European country, they’re «taking from» the share of Syrians, who are fleeing death. They justify their entrance into this domain by pointing to the repercussions of Syrian migration to their region in terms of pressure on the economy and competition for jobs.
Most of them would obtain forged Syrian documents that are provided by the smugglers; this will grant them quick asylum in Europe and dispel the danger of being deported.
As the number of refugees rises, those responsible for organizing these trips are no longer hidden. The merchants who are a part of the mafias are growing in number and the phenomenon has expanded to Turkey; they go back and forth, negotiating with those who want to migrate in broad daylight. On the city’s streets, the most exciting stories are those of the previous migrants, told by those who wish to join them.
In one neighborhood, Mustafa’s mother finishes buying the things on her shopping list – what’s required for her son’s trip. She purchased new underwear and some wool sweaters in the old souks of Tripoli, out of fear that her son will be cold, after news of the weather arrives by phone and social media, which the migrants use to communicate with their families.
She has packed his suitcase herself. She hasn’t forgotten to put in a few cans of food that she is convinced will save him from the hunger that might attack him while waiting to arrive in Germany. Umm Mustafa says with no hesitation that she worked hard to convince her son to go to Europe. She says that his being abroad won’t cause her any pain. Instead, she is pained to see him as «a gunman who joins a group fighting in the Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen clashes.» She thanks God that the battles have ended, but says that «in their wake, they’ve left behind a generation that lacks the opportunity to complete their education and build a future. Some of them have become martyrs; others were wounded. Most of them have begun to walk around Bab al-Tabbaneh’s neighborhoods, smoking water pipes, and waiting for deliverance that never comes.»
She is well aware of the dangers that will accompany her son’s trip to Turkey, and to Greece, before arriving in Germany, where hundreds of others from his neighborhood have already made it. But she is desperate and wants to save him from the failure that has become inevitable.
She is one of the mothers of the many young men who have left the city, fleeing its misery. They say that they are living without being alive, and that they have no future, and that for years they have been forgotten in their marginalized neighborhoods.
At the apartment of her relative, Umm Mohammad has been waiting for seven days for her son to reach Germany as well.
The 60-something woman sits in her home, behind the produce market in Bab al-Tabbaneh, and doesn’t let the cell phone leave her hand. It’s the lung through which she breathes – it’s a new umbilical cord that ties her to her son, and brings her reassurance about him, via pictures, news and messages that he sends. These record his trail, from Turkey – which he left in a rubber boat – to Greece.
«He and his wife and four children suffered quite a bit when they went from one country to another,» she says, «He told me that they sometimes slept in the open air, in the cold. His little daughter, only six months old, suffered from lunch infections because of the weather.» Mohammad’s voice is strained and the words voiced with difficulty in the last voice message received by his mother. She knows that he is crying as he tells her that he is well, and that «the mujaddara that I grew tired from eating at home in Bab al-Tabbaneh is better than Europe and its paradise.» Mohammad didn’t have a job to provide a steady income. He was crushed by debt and was no longer able to provide a living for his four daughters. The news from abroad about health and life insurance granted by European countries to refugees tempted him. He sold his home for about $20,000, paid off his debts, and gave the rest of the money to the smuggler, who couldn’t guarantee that he would get to his preferred destination.
Smugglers have become active throughout north Lebanon from Tripoli, to the Palestinian refugee camps and the villages of Akkar. They ask for $2,500-3,000 per trip and pledge to get the migrant to Turkey by sea, from the port of Tripoli. The migrants reach Mersin in Turkey and then move to Izmir, where they meet, thanks to a middleman, the head of the smuggling network. Some stay in cheap hotels and some are kept on the road for a few days by the smugglers. No one can guarantee the time period that precedes the trip to Greece. It all depends on the signal that comes from the smuggler who remains unknown until the moment the rubber boat is boarded. Information from the field indicates that the people who run the smuggling networks are Turks, while the middlemen are Lebanese and Syrians. They are active in areas where their business is in demand - demand is higher than supply, so hundreds of people are camped out on the streets of Mersin. They won’t go back, despite all of the hardship that the smugglers have placed them in. They cling to the opportunity that might not come another day. But the most dangerous part is their realization that they are purchasing hope from people who traffic in human souls.
