Refugee purgatory

Elyas Salameh needed extras. Back in 2010, while on set shooting a TV commercial in Beirut, Salameh needed people to fill one of the scenes being filmed that day. There was one small hiccup with the extras he found — a language barrier. They were Aramaic speakers — Assyrian Christians from Iraq. “Lebanon is a transitory place for them,” says Salameh, explaining the layers of intertwining storylines in his new documentary — “Transit”. Iraq’s Christian refugees in Lebanon provide an exceptional case in point. It is this population — Assyrians — that has belatedly captured the world’s attention. “We cannot allow these communities to be driven from their ancient homelands,” US President Barack Obama said in a statement released in September. In many ways, it could arguably be too late. While the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is the latest group to target Iraqi Christians, the community has been