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BEDDAWI (AFP) - Crowded into schools with little food and deteriorating sanitary conditions, life is growing more miserable by the day for thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled fighting in northern Lebanon.
Nineteen-year-old Samar Fedda sleeps with her father, mother and three brothers and sisters on a single mattress on one side of a classroom of a school run by the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the Beddawi refugee camp.
Two other families are sharing the small classroom more than 20
people in all.
According to the UN's children's agency UNICEF, around 5,000 people are now housed in the school, a five-storey concrete building stretching over 2,000 square metres (about 2,391 square yards).
They are among about 20,000 refugees who have taken shelter at Beddawi after fleeing nearby Nahr al-Bared camp, where government forces have laid siege to the Fatah al-Islam group since its fighters attacked military targets on May 20.
The bloodiest internal fighting in Lebanon in decades has claimed 79 lives, with no end in sight to the stand-off.
Beddawi, which with a population of 16,000 was already overcrowded, is fast showing signs of strain.
"About 36,000 people are crammed into two square kilometres (less than one square mile)" says Yussef Assaad, head of the Palestinian Red Crescent in northern Lebanon.
"The sanitary conditions at the camp are becoming unbearable," warns the doctor.
The main roads of Beddawi are constantly crammed with families seeking shelter or assistance, amid the unbearable dust and horns of a never-ending traffic jam of relief convoys bringing in aid.
"At Nahr al-Bared, we lived in a three-bedroom apartment, with a sea view. Here, we do not have any air to breathe," says Fedda from beneath her veil.
"Fortunately, there are latrines for men and others for women...but the toilets for men are indescribable," her brother Nasser complains, blocking his nose.
In the evening, chaos erupts when relief workers distribute food.
Women, small children holding on to their traditional robes, fight to snatch the small bags containing bread, jam, cheese and tea.
A young Red Cross volunteer waves an empty bag before the crowd.
"Look, there's nothing more for the time being. You have to wait for another batch of distribution," she yells, in a vain attempt to be heard by the angry, screaming crowd.
Issam, a tall 21-year-old man, observes the scene in silence.
"We are a people who have been humiliated repeatedly, and after that the Westerners wonder why youths are ready to blow up themselves," he says, in reference to suicide bombers.
"Despair breeds terrorism. All this misery is fertile ground for Fatah al-Islam," he says.
Issam, a computer science student in a technical institute in northern Lebanon, cannot even leave Beddawi because in his rushed escape from Nahr al-Bared he lost his identity papers.
"If I leave, I will be arrested by the Lebanese army," which has been intensifying security measures across the country.
At the camp entrance, about 400 Palestinians are sitting on the floor. They have decided to observe a permanent sit-in.
"We will not move from here until we can go back to Nahr al-Bared," one of them says.
Refugees ask the same question of the numerous journalists tramping through Beddawi.
"You know what is happening, please tell us how long we have to be stuck in here?" asks one man.
"When will we be able to return home to Nahr al-Bared?" asks another.
At the courtyard of one of the schools, the Palestinian Red Crescent has installed an open-air cinema, where about 100 hundred children are watching "Sleeping Beauty."
"We try to give them a few moments of happiness, which they have a right to just like all the children of the world," says Red Crescent official Mohammad Sayyed.
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