Life on Hold

Four years of unrelenting violence in Syria has claimed the lives of an estimated 200,000 people and laid waste to countless towns and cities. Close to four millions more Syrians have been displaced. Al Jazeera’s immersive interactive video experience Life on Hold takes you to Lebanon to uncover the daily realities of these refugees.

Since 2011, over two and a half million Syrians from all sides of the conflict have poured across the borders of nearby countries desperate to find safety. Lebanon, Syria’s smallest neighbour, has borne the brunt of this forced migration. It hosts an estimated two million refugees, half of whom are un-registered. Syrian refugees are now believed to account for over one quarter of Lebanon’s population. As they seek food, work, medical care and education, the refugees strain the resources of their host nation, itself a complex and already fragile country still burdened by the ghosts of its own recent civil war.

Refugee agencies and NGO’s struggle to meet the basic needs of so many displaced people. Unlike other neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq, the Lebanese government is not a signatory member of the UN convention on refugees. Having already absorbed over half a million Palestinians since 1948 Lebanon has resisted setting up formal refugee camps. The result, Syrians fleeing to Lebanon must seek shelter wherever they can. Makeshift tented settlements, re-purposed factories, empty hospitals, even former prisons have become home making it harder to offer them basic services.

Life on Hold presents interactive and personal portraits of Syrian refugees living in Lebanon. Each one’s life stuck in frustrating limbo with no end in sight. Each with their own unique burden of loss to bear. Yet, their stories demonstrate that even in the darkest circumstances, hope is doggedly persistent. Children still play, young people still dream of a future, and everyone imagines that, one day, they will be able to return home. But for now they live alongside the Lebanese in a uneasy peace. Doing their best to support one another as they imagine how life will be when the fighting stops.

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