Bringing babies into the world in Lebanon’s crammed shelters

Mariam Zein cradled her 11-week-old son on a mattress on the floor where she and her family have sheltered near Beirut since the Israel-Hezbollah war upended her young family’s life.

“I was really excited when I was in my ninth month of pregnancy… I never thought he’d be born and there’d be war,” said Zein, 26, clutching baby Hussein.

“I haven’t been able to enjoy my son —my first child… to see him getting bigger in his own bed, in his own home.” “I was very sad, and I’m still sad,” she told AFP, nappies and baby formula wedged near a photocopier, clothes hanging on an improvised line in a training institute.

Zein fled with her husband, their baby and other relatives when war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah on March 2.

She does not know if her home in south Lebanon is still standing.

Lebanese authorities say more than 2,450 people have been killed in the war and more than one million displaced. A 10-day ceasefire came into effect on Friday.

Some 140,000 people had been squeezed into overcrowded shelters like the center in Beirut’s suburbs, housing Zein’s family and around 500 other people, among them five pregnant women and others with young babies.

Zein said she stopped breastfeeding because there was no privacy, and now struggles to buy baby formula, while Hussein is outgrowing his clothes.

“Whatever happens I just want my son near me,” she said.

Pregnancy

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), an estimated 620,000 women and girls are displaced, including some 13,500 pregnant women, of whom “1,500 are expected to give birth within the next 30 days”.

The agency and other organisations have sought to support women as the authorities struggled to cope.

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AFP

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