Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has launched water and sanitation interventions for internally displaced persons across Lebanon. Families are now sheltering in abandoned buildings, grappling with no running water or functioning toilets.
MSF: Mobile clinics complement water aid
The humanitarian organisation deploys mobile clinics that provide general healthcare and medications for non-communicable diseases. This includes sexual and reproductive health services and mental health support to communities forcibly displaced by Israeli bombardments.
MSF also says access to safe water and sanitation remains one of the most essential pillars of health and dignity during displacement.
Across Lebanon, the organisation has strengthened water and sanitation conditions in shelters to ensure people can keep themselves and their living spaces clean. This is to manage waste and protect their health, privacy, and dignity.
Maryam Srour, MSF communications manager in Lebanon, described visiting families living in an abandoned hospital in Beirut.
“I didn’t realise until I stepped into the building in March how much I had tried to forget it. Grey walls. Grey ceilings. Grey floors. The same scenes. The same struggles,” Srour said.
She recounted stepping into a space stripped of warmth and colour. Puddles of water litter the floors and corners.
Additionally, rooms with gaping windows are patched over with bits of cloth and cardboard.
Abandoned Beirut hospital now shelters dialysis patients
Srour said the building once housed one of Beirut’s most advanced hospitals and contained the city’s first MRI machine. Her grandmother sought care there in 1990.
However, after years of civil unrest, authorities abandoned the structure, leaving it to decay.
Today, the building shelters mothers, elderly people, patients on dialysis and cancer treatment, and families from different walks of life brought together by displacement. It has no toilets and no running water.
Mohammad Dandash, MSF logistics manager, walked Srour through the 12-storey building. MSF worked there during the 2024 escalation, clearing grey water and repairing toilets for people with disabilities or additional needs.
Following the ceasefire, some families returned home, but many remain displaced across Lebanon. MSF said it continues to visit shelters like this one through mobile clinics and response teams.
Meanwhile, MSF’s Water and Sanitation Coordinator, in a Video posted on X, says MSF currently provides clean water to more than 500,000 people daily. She also noted that approximately one in every four residents now has access to clean water.