With the recent Israeli attack on Lebanon killing nearly 2,500 people, no one is safe in the country and the only help for Africans is other migrant workers. (Photo by: Ahmad Kadura/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Ida Yanoko, a domestic worker from Burkina Faso, fights back tears as she describes the anxiety and fear of being caught up in a war in a foreign land where she has never felt a sense of belonging or safety.
“My employer left home at 10 a.m. and the bombing started an hour later,” said Yanoko, who worked under the kafala system for a family in southern Lebanon.
Yanoko desperately called her employer for help, but her employer never returned. Even when a missile landed right outside the house that left her, she says,
It was on September 23, when the Israeli military launched airstrikes in southern Lebanon. That day alone, Israel killed 600 people and displaced thousands. A month later, the death toll had risen to at least 2,483, according to the Lebanese government. More than 1.2 million people have been evacuated since October 2023.
Yanoko was eventually rescued by Emmanuel, a Burkina Faso worker. They fled on bicycles to a cramped apartment in Beirut's Burj Hammoud, where other migrant workers had gathered.
In most cases, this kind of mutual aid is all that can exist for these workers.
Vianney Nguemakouye has been distributing food and toiletries to Beirut's shelters and safe houses every night since early October. The Cameroonian national is part of a group of volunteers helping migrant workers who have been left behind by their employers or have lost their jobs since Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon began this year.
Some are in informal shelters. There are many people sleeping on the streets. The need for assistance outweighs the trickle-in of support from voluntary donations by other migrant workers and online crowdfunding campaigns.
“We still need a lot, but for now we just do our best to survive,” says Nguemakoue.
The former domestic worker turned seamstress has been responding to needs through a WhatsApp group, which now has nearly 200 migrant workers seeking help. Thirty-three women are living in a cramped shelter in Doura, a suburb northeast of Beirut.
Some people were seriously injured. They have little more to offer than that.
“We don't have enough food or water,” Aishatu John Kamara says in a video note.
At the Burj Hamoud evacuation center where Yanoko and her friends took refuge, the mattresses lined against the walls indicate a much larger family than could be supported by the meager food piled high on a small table inside. I can see it.
War-related displacement is further exacerbated by problems caused by the controversial kafala labor system under which these workers are employed in Lebanon. This will give employers complete control over migrant workers and their legal status.
Many employers confiscate workers' passports and treat them very poorly, often knowing that they will not be able to leave. Many people leave the country anyway, but even if bombs fall from the sky, they can't leave the country. Instead, they seek shelter from each other in cramped quarters like Dura and Burj Hammoud.
This abuse fostered a tradition of mutual aid that workers relied on when faced with new threats.
“Since the civil war in the 1980s, these communities have become stronger and respond to emergencies by helping each other,” says Nofal Kareem of the Lebanese Anti-Racism Movement.
Delphine, a migrant worker from Ivory Coast who has been living in Lebanon since 1992, currently spends her days supporting displaced families, including migrant workers, at St. Joseph's Church in Beirut.
“Last week we prepared meals for over 100 people,” she says.
Many migrant workers, previously seen as passive victims of the exploitative kafala system, are now standing up to fight for their rights. Mariam Sesay from Sierra Leone is one of those voices.
“Once I thought about ending my life. But now I'm standing up to fight,” she said in a phone interview in August, before the conflict escalated.
She came to Lebanon 10 years ago and after enduring years of abuse under the kafala system, she fled her employers and chose to take a chance on the streets. With support from the immigrant community, she turned her life around and now works as a social worker and advocate to abolish the kafala system.
“We are victims, but we can also fight for our rights,” Sesay said.
She loves cooking and uses it both as therapy and as a way to share her culture. A few weeks before the Israeli war escalated, she was teaching a cooking class at the Great Oven, a community-based organization in Beirut's Geitawi neighborhood.
The war interrupted classes, but not cooking. The Great Oven is currently helping to produce food for displaced people.
Many feared migrants want to return home.
At a shelter in Dura, Mariatu Karugbo, a Sierra Leonean, says: For some of us with medical conditions, this is not easy. ”
The 24-year-old says she has heart disease. She arrived in Lebanon in May and after two months of what she described as harsh working conditions, she fled her employer's home and found another job as a bank cleaner.
Lebanon's International Organization for Migration (IOM) said it had received more than 700 new deportation requests since early October. However, attempts at secession are often complicated by the turmoil of war and the legacy of the kafala system.
“A critical challenge is Beirut’s airport’s limited operational capacity due to limited flight availability and a lack of dedicated funding to provide this support,” IOM said. said spokesman Joe Rowley.
If IOM disrupts logistics, many migrants will soon be unable to leave Lebanon.
“It's a very difficult situation because some people don't have travel documents and are unregistered,” said Cerna Ba, Sierra Leone's information minister.
He said the Sierra Leone government had issued 100 temporary travel documents for Lebanese nationals who needed to evacuate.
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