Christians in Lebanon are continuing to struggle within the aftermath of the recent conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which saw an armed incursion by Israel into the south of the country.
A ceasefire was agreed over six months ago and since then many local families within the south have left for the capital of Beirut, looking for higher economic opportunities.
Sister Gerard Merhej, Director of the Antonine Sisters’ School in Debel, told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that because the conflict began the local population appears to have halved, with only 200 children now attending her school, down from a pre-war figure of 400.
She said that the majority of those that left were the more educated in society. Among those who remain many are impoverished because they work in agriculture but most of the fields have been destroyed by the war.
Another Catholic Sister, Maya El Beaino of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, said she selected to stay within the Ain Ebel municipality in order that she could proceed providing vital support to those in need.
“Our mission is to go to the peripheries and accompany those in need,” she said.
Her congregation runs a college, which switched to online classes through the conflict.
“When there was an airstrike near the house of one in every of the pupils, all of them could hear [the explosions],” she said.
She added that shared adversity bought those in the college together, “[They] had a way that they were all in it together, though they were physically apart.”
Sister El Beaino also noted that many individuals have left the region consequently of the war: “Only the elderly stayed. They would moderately die at home than leave.”
ACN is providing medicine and other aid supplies to people who find themselves desperately in need in the world.
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