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The Shatila refugee camp in Beirut: overwhelmed and under strain

Today, over 22,000 Palestinian refugees live in the Shatila refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut. Most of them belong to families who had to leave Palestine during the Nakba of 1948. However, since war broke out in Syria in 2011, the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon have seen a dramatic influx of Syrian refugees and are completely overwhelmed. By Mohammad Reza Hassani

Palestinians living in Lebanon are not entitled to apply for Lebanese citizenship. They are, to all intents and purposes, stateless, which means that they cannot own property and enter certain professions in Lebanon. Most of them live – cut off from Lebanese society – in one of the country's 12 big Palestinian refugee camps.
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