UN refugee agency’s representative in Lebanon tours site in Beirut where displaced seeking shelter

Описание: (9 Mar 2026)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beirut, Lebanon - 9 March 2026
1. Various of people unloading aid from a truck
2. Various of people carrying aid and entering a school turned shelter for displaced people
3. Close of label on sack of aid reading “UNHCR”
4. ⁠Aid sacks
5. Various of Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR's Representative in Lebanon, and Marwan Abboud, Beirut governor, at a tour of a school where displaced families are staying
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR's Representative in Lebanon:
"What we've seen in the past year is a very rapid scale of displacement. The government yesterday reported that over half a million people have now been displaced from their homes in the south of Lebanon, in Bekaa, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and the pressure on finding accommodation for them in collective shelters like this school here is immense."
6. Various of Lindholm Billing and Abboud taking to displaced person during visiting school
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR's Representative in Lebanon:
“Today, I’m very honored to be here with the Governor of Beirut, because we have been cooperating to provide critical assistance to displaced people staying at different shelters around Beirut, including this school. So UNHCR is distributing last night, or yesterday, we have provided 5,000 mattresses and 5,000 blankets to municipality."
8. Various of mattresses
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR's Representative in Lebanon:
“So the information UNHCR has, which comes from the general security in Lebanon and the Syrian authorities, is that around 70,000 Syrians have crossed back under duress in a rush to Syria because they were so afraid of what is happening in Lebanon."
10. Various of displaced person folding blanket and fixing up cots
11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Marwan Abboud Beirut governor:
“The goal is for us, together with UNHCR, to revisit the shelters to ensure that the distributed assistance reaches the people who need it and to listen to the concerns and problems of the residents."
12. Various of displaced people at school
STORYLINE:
The UN Refugee Agency’s Representative in Lebanon toured a shelter in Beirut where displaced people were forced to seek safety amid mounting pressure from a rapid rise in displacement across Lebanon.

Aid workers and volunteers unloaded sacks of emergency supplies Monday at a Beirut school that has been converted into a shelter.

Karolina Lindholm Billing, visited the site with Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud, while families continued arriving and aid distributions were underway.

Lebanon said over a half-million people have been displaced in the week of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The actual number is likely higher.

Lebanon’s count of 517,000 refers to those who registered on the government’s online portal.

Israel over the past week has called on residents in dozens of villages across southern Lebanon and the entirety of Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate.

In Beirut, sheltering families crammed into schools, slept in cars or in open areas near the Mediterranean Sea, where some burned firewood to keep warm.

Israel’s renewed offensive began last week after Hezbollah launched rockets toward northern Israel during the Iran war's opening days.

Around 70,000 Syrians have crossed the border from Lebanon "under duress in a rush to Syria because they were so afraid of what is happening in Lebanon," Billing said.



AP video by Fadi Tawil and Mahammad Aounti

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