14 December 2023 

Beirut, Lebanon – Smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes in a Beirut cafe, 22-year-old Salah Abrush calls his friend, Feras, who arrived in Germany in September. When he hangs up, Salah leans back in his chair. A hopeful smile stretches across his face. “They’ll help you in Germany,” he says, “not like here in Lebanon.”

Feras—who, like Salah, is Syrian—paid a trafficker $8,000 this past July to take him on a flight from Lebanon to Tunisia, followed by a 22-hour boat ride to Italy and finally a nearly month-long walk from Italy, through Switzerland, to Germany. 

Six months later, Feras is settled in the western German city of Cologne, where he is waiting for his asylum application to be processed. Hearing about his success has left Salah eager to attempt a similar journey himself.

Salah says his life in Lebanon has become unbearable. He was a child when his family came here from Aleppo in 2009, before the war, and stayed as conditions in Syria worsened. After 2011, as 1.5 million Syrian refugees streamed into the country, his life in Lebanon grew increasingly difficult. Most of his family has returned to Syria, but he does not want to go back, fearing punishment for evading Syria’s mandatory military service. His options for what to do next are slim, and all are dangerous.

“It’s getting more dangerous for Syrians in Lebanon. We are hated here,” Salah says. He reaches up to touch the top of his head, running his fingers over a large lump that has formed. On November 10, a group of armed Lebanese men approached Salah and demanded he give them his moped, he says. When he refused, one of them hit him with a large metal rod, cracking his skull and causing a brain hemorrhage that left him near death.

A picture of the injury provided to Syria Direct shows a large gash running across the top of Salah’s head. He was taken to the hospital, where doctors told him he should stay overnight. But the stay would cost $1,500 without insurance, so he checked himself out after a few hours, with no choice but to heal at home.  

Violence against Syrian refugees in Lebanon is on the rise, stoked by provocative media campaigns organized by the country’s politicians, who blame Syrians for the country’s ongoing economic crisis. Meanwhile, the Lebanese army has been carrying out an unprecedented wave of arrests and deportations of Syrian refugees.

Salah never attempted to press charges for the attack. His residency papers are expired, and if he went to the police he felt he would “definitely” be deported to Syria—an outcome he was not willing to risk. 

Just about a month before he was nearly killed, Salah and five Syrian coworkers were let go from their jobs at Spinneys, a supermarket in Beirut’s upscale Achrafieh neighborhood. Salah said he was told the supermarket was closing, but when he returned to pick up his salary, he found it open and running, just without Syrian staff.

Now, Salah is sure he will leave Lebanon. “I don’t have another option,” he says. “Here, I’m 100 percent sure I won’t have a future. I won’t have kids. I won’t marry. I can’t do anything.”