Scottish Catholic Observer

By Amanda Connelly

Scottish Catholics are being urged not to forget the millions of refugees from the Syrian civil war this Christmas as SCIAF launches a new appeal for help.

Fr Paul Karam, the president of Caritas Lebanon, the primary Church charity helping the 1.5 million refugees who have fled to Lebanon from Syria, said his tiny country was on the verge of being overwhelmed.

“Imagine that in the UK you had 20 million refugees in a period of three years,” he said. “How can you manage this? Lebanon is not a big country and you don’t have the whole infrastructure that you have here.”

Fr Karam said many of the refugees in Lebanon were living rough due to the lack of refugee camps, sleeping on streets amongst piles of rubbish that have not been collected for months

In Lebanon, we cannot talk about [refugee] camps because they don’t exist in terms of camps,” he said. “When you say camps, that means you have people gathered and you have a fence to defend them, they are well served, where you have security. In Lebanon you don’t have that. In some parts of Lebanon we have what we call gatherings of refugees. You have five or six or ten families, but you cannot talk about camps.”

Serving all

Because of the huge numbers of refugees that have entered Lebanon, life has become difficult for natives as well, as social care, healthcare and transportation needs struggle to cope.

As the president of Caritas Lebanon, Fr Karam feels his mission is to give humanitarian help to everybody who needs it.

“We don’t distinguish one person from another,” he said. “We serve everybody: Christians, Muslims, [all] refugees. We are here to serve and we are here to try to be near the people who are in need, so our mission is to try to do as much as we can.”

As the Syrian civil war enters its sixth year with no end in sight, Fr Karam said the war games of great powers had a terrible cost.

“The consequences are on the ground, because who pays the bill of such politics? Always the innocent people,” Fr Karam said. “It is now urgent to stop this war and to stop the weapon trafficking. Behind the war and weapon trafficking you have many people who are making a fortune. Why do we always find money to finance a war and never find money to stop hunger in the world?”

Despite the horrors the priest refuses to give up. “Wherever you see the need in others, you can see the face of Jesus himself,” he said. “We must never lose hope. A Christian is a man or a woman of hope. It is difficult yes, but we need to believe always, and to see that there will be sun shining the second day, and the third day after. You must not lose your Faith—this is essential. If you lose your Faith you cannot talk anymore. You need to make a testimony of your life, a testimony of your Faith, and this will reveal the whole spiritual aspect you have inside of you.”

Christian hope

The work of Fr Karam and Caritas Lebanon, supported by the likes of the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF), offers this same Christian hope to hundreds of thousands of refugees every day.

“Let me thank SCIAF for what it has done in the past and for what it is now doing in harmony and collaboration with CAFOD,” he said. “It is important for all donors who are helping to know that their help is not going in vain; their help is going to try and help people to overcome this crisis. What SCIAF and other Catholic organisations like them are doing are small things, but they have a big and huge value.”

To help, visit www.sciaf.org.uk

—This story ran in full in the November 18 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.