Women Lack Basics in Lebanon's Crowded Prisons

Nour said she and her daughter shared a cell at the Baabda women's prison with another 23 people, including two other babies. AFP
Nour said she and her daughter shared a cell at the Baabda women's prison with another 23 people, including two other babies. AFP
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Women Lack Basics in Lebanon's Crowded Prisons

Nour said she and her daughter shared a cell at the Baabda women's prison with another 23 people, including two other babies. AFP
Nour said she and her daughter shared a cell at the Baabda women's prison with another 23 people, including two other babies. AFP

Nour is raising her four-month-old daughter in Lebanon's most overpopulated women's prison, struggling to get formula and nappies for her baby as the country's economy lies in tatters.

"I don't have enough milk to breastfeed, and baby formula isn't readily available," said the 25-year-old, who was detained eight months ago on drug-related accusations.

"Sometimes my daughter doesn't have formula for three days," she added, as green-eyed Amar wriggled on her lap.

Lebanese authorities have long struggled to care for the more than 8,000 people stuck in the country's jails.

But three years of an unprecedented economic crisis mean even basics like medicines are lacking, while cash-strapped families struggle to support their jailed relatives.

Essentials like baby formula have become luxuries for many Lebanese, as the financial collapse -- dubbed by the World Bank as one of the worst in recent world history -- has pushed most of the population into poverty.

A months-long judges' strike has exacerbated the situation in prisons, contributing to overcrowding.

Nour said she and her daughter shared a cell at the Baabda women's prison with another 23 people, including two other babies.

She said she sometimes kept Amar in the same nappy overnight while waiting for her parents to bring fresh supplies, but said even they can "barely help with one percent of my baby's needs".

In a hushed voice, she said the shower water gave her and her daughter rashes, but that Amar had never been examined by a prison doctor.

"We all make mistakes, but the punishment we get here is double," Nour said.

Inmates at the prison, located outside the capital Beirut, spoke to AFP in the presence of the prison director and declined to provide their surnames.

Around them, in the facility's breakroom, paint peeled off the walls and water dripped from the ceiling.

Rampant inflation and higher fuel prices have also prevented families from visiting their jailed relatives regularly.

Bushra, another inmate, said she had not seen her teenage daughter for nine months because her family could not afford transportation.

She was detained earlier this year on slander allegations and has been in jail ever since.

"I miss my daughter," said the tattooed 28-year-old, as her eyes welled up with tears.

"So many mothers here cannot even see their children," she added.

Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said in September that Lebanon's economic crisis had "multiplied the suffering of inmates".

His ministry has appealed for more international support for the prison system, citing overcrowding, poor maintenance and shortages of food and medications.

Inmate Tatiana, 32, expressed helplessness at her and her family's situation. She said her mother had slipped into poverty and was living on just $1 a day.

Prisoners "need basics: shampoo, deodorant, clothes," said Tatiana, who has been waiting for a court hearing for nearly three years.

"But our parents cannot afford them for themselves, how can they buy those things for us?" she added, dark circles lining her eyes.

Tatiana is among the nearly 80 percent of Lebanon's prison population languishing in pre-trial detention, according to interior ministry figures. Prison occupancy stands at 323 percent nationwide.

The country's already slow judiciary has been paralyzed since August, when judges started an open-ended strike to demand better wages.

Inmates told AFP they slept on dirty mattresses strewn on the floor in a one-toilet cell shared between more than 20 people.

Baabda women's prison director Nancy Ibrahim said more than 105 detainees were crammed into the jail's five cells, compared to around 80 before the economic collapse.

Non-governmental organizations help with everything from food to "medications, vaccinations for the children" and maintenance, she told AFP from her office at the facility.

Rana Younes, 25, a social worker at Dar Al Amal, said her organization helps women prisoners get the basics including sanitary pads, and also provides legal assistance and even funding for cancer treatments.

She said prisoners sometimes missed court hearings because authorities failed to secure fuel or transportation for them.

Dar Al Amal has spent thousands of dollars on repairs for worn-out pipes and trucked-in water supplies at the Baabda prison, said organization director Hoda Kara.

"Parents can no longer help, the state is absent, so we try to fill the gap," she said.



Lebanese Emergency Services Are Overwhelmed and Need Better Gear to Save Lives in Wartime

Search and rescue team members try to find victims following an overnight raid by the Israel army on the Palestinian camp of Ain el-Hilweh, in Sidon, Lebanon, 01 October 2024. (EPA)
Search and rescue team members try to find victims following an overnight raid by the Israel army on the Palestinian camp of Ain el-Hilweh, in Sidon, Lebanon, 01 October 2024. (EPA)
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Lebanese Emergency Services Are Overwhelmed and Need Better Gear to Save Lives in Wartime

Search and rescue team members try to find victims following an overnight raid by the Israel army on the Palestinian camp of Ain el-Hilweh, in Sidon, Lebanon, 01 October 2024. (EPA)
Search and rescue team members try to find victims following an overnight raid by the Israel army on the Palestinian camp of Ain el-Hilweh, in Sidon, Lebanon, 01 October 2024. (EPA)

When Israel bombed buildings outside the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, Mohamed Arkadan and his team rushed to an emergency unlike anything they had ever seen.

About a dozen apartments had collapsed onto the hillside they once overlooked, burying more than 100 people. Even after 17 years with the civil defense forces of one of the world's most war-torn nations, Arkadan was shocked at the destruction. By Monday afternoon — about 24 hours after the bombing — his team had pulled more than 40 bodies — including children's — from the rubble, along with 60 survivors.

The children's bodies broke his heart, said Arkadan, 38, but his team of over 30 first responders' inability to help further pained him more. Firetrucks and ambulances haven’t been replaced in years. Rescue tools and equipment are in short supply. His team has to buy their uniforms out of pocket.

An economic crisis that began in 2019 and a massive 2020 port explosion have left Lebanon struggling to provide basic services such as electricity and medical care. Political divisions have left the country of 6 million without a president or functioning government for more than two years, deepening a national sense of abandonment reaching down to the men whom the people depend on in emergencies.

“We have zero capabilities, zero logistics,” Arkadan said. “We have no gloves, no personal protection gear.”

War has upended Lebanon again Israel’s intensified air campaign against Hezbollah has upended the country. Over 1,000 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since Sept. 17, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes, sleeping on beaches and streets.

The World Health Organization said over 30 primary health care centers around Lebanon’s affected areas have been closed.

On Tuesday, Israel said it began a limited ground operation against Hezbollah and warned people to evacuate several southern communities, promising further escalation.

Lebanon is “grappling with multiple crises, which have overwhelmed the country’s capacity to cope,” said Imran Riza, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon, who said the UN had allocated $24 million in emergency funding for people affected by the fighting.

Exhausted medical staff are struggling to cope with the daily influx of new patients. Under government emergency plans, hospitals and medical workers have halted non-urgent operations.

Government shelters are full

In the southern province of Tyre, many doctors have fled along with residents. In Nabatiyeh, the largest province in southern Lebanon, first responders say they have been working around the clock since last week to reach hundreds of people wounded in bombings that hit dozens of villages and towns, often many on the same day.

After the bombing in Sidon nearly 250 first responders joined Arkadan's team, including a specialized search-and-rescue unit from Beirut, some 45 kilometers (28 miles) to the north. His team didn't have the modern equipment needed to pull people from a disaster.

“We used traditional tools, like scissors, cables, shovels,” Arkadan said.

“Anyone here?” rescuers shouted through the gaps in mounds of rubble, searching for survivors buried deeper underground. One excavator removed the debris slowly, to avoid shaking the heaps of bricks and mangled steel.

Many sought refuge in the ancient city of Tyre, 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the border with Israel, thinking it was likely to be spared bombardment. More than 8,000 people arrived, said Hassan Dbouk, the head of its disaster management unit.

He said that there were no pre-positioned supplies, such as food parcels, hygiene kits and mattresses, and moving trucks now is fraught with danger. Farmers have been denied access to their land because of the bombings and the municipality is struggling to pay salaries.

Meanwhile, garbage is piling up on the streets. The number of municipal workers has shrunk from 160 to 10.

“The humanitarian situation is catastrophic,” Dbouk said.

Wissam Ghazal, the health ministry official in Tyre, said in one hospital, only five of 35 doctors have remained. In Tyre province, eight medics, including three with a medical organization affiliated with Hezbollah, were killed over two days, he said.

Over the weekend, the city itself became a focus of attacks.

Israeli warplanes struck near the port city’s famed ruins, along its beaches and in residential and commercial areas, forcing thousands of residents to flee. At least 15 civilians were killed Saturday and Sunday, including two municipal workers, a soldier and several children, all but one from two families.

It took rescuers two days to comb through the rubble of a home in the Kharab neighborhood in the city’s center, where a bomb had killed nine members of the al-Samra family.

Six premature babies in incubators around the city were moved to Beirut. The city’s only doctor, who looked after them, couldn’t move between hospitals under fire, Ghazal said.

One of the district’s four hospitals shut after sustaining damage from a strike that affected its electricity supply and damaged the operations room. In two other hospitals, glass windows were broken. For now, the city’s hospitals are receiving more killed than wounded.

“But you don’t know what will happen when the intensity of attacks increases. We will definitely need more.”

Making do with what they have

Hussein Faqih, head of civil defense in the Nabatiyeh province, said that “we are working in very difficult and critical circumstances because the strikes are random. We have no protection. We have no shields, no helmets, no extra hoses. The newest vehicle is 25 years old. We are still working despite all that.”

At least three of his firefighters’ team were killed in early September. Ten have been injured since then. Of 45 vehicles, six were hit and are now out of service.

Faqih said he is limiting his team’s search-and-rescue missions to residential areas, keeping them away from forests or open areas where they used to put out fires.

“These days, there is something difficult every day. Body parts are everywhere, children, civilians and bodies under rubble,” Faqih said. Still, he said, he considers his job to be the safety net for the people.

“We serve the people, and we will work with what we have.”