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Michael Birmingham is an Irish peace activist who has been mostly based in Lebanon since July 2006. He has formerly worked on human rights and social justice in Ireland and Iraq .
Something terrible has been done to the residents of Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp, and the Lebanese people are being spared the details. Over the past two weeks, since the camp was partly reopened to a few of its residents, many of us who have been there have been stunned by a powerful reality. Beyond the massive destruction of the homes from three months of bombing, room after room, house after house have been burned. Burned from the inside. Among the ashes on the ground, are the insides of what appear to have been car tires. The walls have soot dripping down from what seems clearly to have been something flammable sprayed on them. Rooms, houses, shops, garages -- all blackened ruins, yet having had no damage from bombing or battle. They were burned deliberately by people entering and torching them.
How many we do not know; it is too large for a few people to comprehensively assess. But finding a house or business spared from the bombing that has not been torched is very hard indeed.
Why did this happen? Why have the people whose entire life's work is to be found in ashes on the floor of these burned out homes, not been given any information about this — not a word? Each day, new people return to find that this is what has happened to their homes.
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