Born in a Tent: The First Days of a Baby in Beirut's Displacement Crisis

BEIRUT — For sixteen-day-old Shiman, the world is confined to the thin walls of a donated tent. The air carries the sour smell of damp blankets, the constant buzz of insects, and the distant, terrifying roar of warplanes. This is not the beginning her mother, Haifa Kenjo, imagined.

Kenjo, 34, was in her final month of pregnancy when Israeli airstrikes targeted Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahiyeh. She fled with her husband and their two-year-old son, Khalid, in nothing but sandals and pajamas as their home shook. "There was no time for anything—no clothes, no money," she recounted. They found precarious shelter in a tent near downtown, securing its flimsy tarp with rocks against the coastal wind.

Their story is one thread in a vast and grim tapestry. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) warns that among the over one million people displaced within Lebanon by the latest escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, some 13,500 are pregnant. More than 1,500 are due to give birth within the next month, often with severely limited access to medical care.

Kenjo, originally from Syria but long a resident of Beirut, had planned to deliver at the city's main public hospital, where she had her first child. While Lebanese mothers give birth there for free, Kenjo, married to a Lebanese man, must pay. When her labor began on March 28, an ambulance was called and her husband managed to gather the $40 admission fee. But the $500 required for the delivery itself was buried under the rubble of their home, destroyed in an airstrike the previous week.

With no other option, they returned to the tent and summoned a midwife. Umm Ali, who assisted the birth, described the conditions as profoundly challenging. "The tent was dirty, the rain got in. We washed the baby with bottled water," she said. Kenjo, unable to breastfeed, faces a daily crisis: infant formula costs more than her husband earns installing water tanks. Occasional donations from camp volunteers provide only a few days' supply at a time.

The toll on Shiman is visible. She does not cry normally but coughs weakly. Her skin is cool and marked with insect bites. "She is so precious," Kenjo said, gently stroking her daughter. "But for her, we have nothing. We have less than zero."

/// Reader Reactions ///

Layla Hassan, Social Worker in Tripoli: "This is the human face of a statistic. The UNFPA warnings are not abstract—they are this mother, this baby. The systemic failure to protect maternal health in crises is a moral catastrophe."

Dr. Elias Farah, Pediatrician (Beirut): "Newborns in unsanitary, stressful environments are at extreme risk for hypothermia, infection, and malnutrition. This child's coughing is a major red flag. Without immediate and consistent nutritional and medical support, the outcomes are very grave."

Markus Berg, Commentator: "While the imagery is heart-wrenching, we must scrutinize the role of all armed actors in creating these humanitarian disasters. The narrative often focuses on one side, but the bombardment of civilian areas and the use of populated zones for military purposes by any group seeds these tragedies. The international community's selective outrage solves nothing."

Rana Al-Masri, Volunteer with "Aid for Mothers": "It fills me with rage. We're delivering formula by the bottle when what's needed is corridors for safe childbirth and massive, organized aid. This baby's first days should not be a fight for the most basic necessities. We are failing them."