High and dry

In an informal tented settlement just outside of Zahle, dozens of Syrian refugee women and girls crowd around faucets pumping water out of a large plastic tank. The “UN truck,” as they call it, has just filled their settlement’s communal tank with thousands of liters of water, and they rush to collect their share before it’s gone. After filling their buckets and bottles, they return, water sloshing, to their tents to drink, cook and clean.   But barely 100 meters down the dirt road is a drastically different story. In a settlement of the same size, refugees are experiencing the full brunt of Lebanon’s water crisis. No ‘UN trucks’ come by to deliver potable water here — instead, refugees buy their drinking water from costly private companies. Mothers keep their children inside, in the shade of their tents, for fear of dehydration were they to play in the sun. The