When people lose hope in the future, even the deepest love of homeland is not enough to make them stay, writes Bernard Toutounji. Source: Aid to the Church in Need.
Lebanon is a small country on the Mediterranean, yet from this ancient land have come many people who now call Australia home and contribute immensely to our nation.
The reason for the migration of some 250,000 Lebanese since the late 19th century has often not been freely chosen; it has come in waves connected to what seems like a series of ongoing crises in the homeland.
Southern Lebanon has borne the brunt of much of the fighting since 1978.
The militant group Hezbollah has its strongest base in the south; it was set up in the 1980s to resist Israeli occupation, but the most recent fragile ceasefire, established in 2024, collapsed in February this year and the bombings are now as intense as they have ever been.
Around 10 weeks into this latest conflict, more than 2,500 people in Lebanon have been killed, including more than 400 children, and more than one million people displaced from their homes.
This is a war using drones, missiles and rockets, but as is so often the case, those who suffer are families, children and ordinary citizens trying to live their lives.
I had the opportunity to visit Lebanon in late 2023. Almost every person I spoke to (excluding the clergy and religious) told me that if they could feasibly migrate, they would do so – not because they wanted to leave, but because the strain of waking up each day in the middle of ongoing crisis was destroying their ability to live and prosper in even the most basic ways.
When people lose hope in the future, even the deepest love of homeland is not enough to make them stay. And we have seen that. A century ago, Christians made up 70 per cent of Lebanon; today that is between 20 to 30 per cent.
What is the role of the Church in all this? It is to be there for the people, to offer them every help, spiritual and physical. And indeed, that is what the church in Lebanon continues to do, and I will add, with the help of Christians abroad.
Details: Aid to the Church in Need Lebanon appeal.
Bernard Toutounji is the National Director of Aid to the Church in Need Australia and New Zealand.
FULL STORY
What is happening to Christians in southern Lebanon? (By Bernard Toutounji, The Catholic Weekly)
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