What Does the Inside of a Refugee Camp in Lebanon Look Like?
ICC Note: According to UN figures, one out of every 113 people on earth is a refugee. In Lebanon that figure stands at one in every five people and it’s even lower in Turkey. The refugee crisis has been dubbed one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes of our age. But what does being a refugee actually look like? Open Doors has created an interactive 360 degree video that shows viewers exactly what it is like to live as a refugee in Lebanon.
09/22/2016 Lebanon (WWM): One in every 113 people on earth is a refugee, according to UN figures; yesterday at its General Assembly in the US, it adopted the New York Declaration aimed at reaching a more humane and coordinated approach to large movements of refugees and migrants. At the meeting, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged world leaders to “commit together to upholding the rights and dignity of everyone forced by circumstance to flee their homes in search of a better life”.
By comparison to the global ratio, 1 in 5 people in Lebanon is a refugee. It is, by far, the country with the highest number of refugees per inhabitant, second only to Turkey in accepting the highest number of refugees from Syria (2 million) – at currently 1.4 million.
A new responsive video filmed inside a Lebanese camp for Syrian refugees highlights the poor living conditions that the New York Declaration hopes to address. Produced by Open Doors, a charity that provides support to Christians under pressure for their faith, it’s filmed through a 360⁰ lens that allows viewers to move the camera angle at any point just by a click and drag of the mouse.
The 3’30” video starts with the camera crew driving to the camp. The viewer is asked to ‘look right’ at the mountains separating Lebanon from Syria – to view the mountains, the viewer must use their mouse to interact with the film. Inside the camp, the film shows just some of the people forced to live long-term in makeshift tents after fleeing Syria.
Across Lebanon’s mountainous border are even more Syrians finding shelter before trying to get out. The population of Syria has undergone the ‘largest displacement crisis globally’ says the UN – more than half its pre-war population of 22 million is no longer living in their own home. About 7.6 million Syrians are internally displaced; latest figures show 4.8 million are registered refugees outside it. The UN estimates that of the 1.8 million Christians living in Syria before the war only 600,000 – 900,000 remain.
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