Mariam Othman came into the world just three months ago. Already she's a refugee.
She, along with more than 250 other people, are living in Beirut's parched Sanayeh Gardens. Mariam lay silently on Friday on a blue and white cot under the scorching sun that beat down on the dried grass. Fellow refugees huddled around and fussed over her continuously.
Baby Mariam is one of more than a half million people who have been driven out of their homes in the Shiite regions of south Lebanon and the southern Beirut suburbs by Israel's 10-day-old aerial onslaught.
PHOTO: AP
Thousands of them now sleep rough in Beirut parks, cram into schools or bunk with relatives and friends.
"I tried to stay at home, but then the bombs started falling really close. I couldn't risk it any longer," said Mohammed Othman, Mariam's father, whose home is in the south Beirut suburb of Dahiyah.
His eight other children are trapped in the deep south, where an Israeli invasion looks increasingly likely. They were visiting their grandmother in the village of Kafra and couldn't get away.
Refugees have had to hit the streets and public buildings because their main refuge in past wars is no longer an option. During previous exoduses, Shiites in the south fled to Dahiyah, a Shiite neighborhood dominated by Hezbollah. But this time Dahiyah has been turned to rubble flattened by Israeli airstrikes.
The UN says more than 500,000 people have fled their homes. Among them are an estimated 200,000 people who fled from Dahiyah, most into the rest of Beirut along with the south's refugees.
In Sanayeh Gardens volunteers hand out two meals a day, water, baby formula and diapers.
Regulars in the park swell from about 250 at night to double that number or more in the day, as many refugees living nearby with relatives or friends "come to spend time here to give their hosts some space," said one volunteer, Sarjoun Kantar, a 23-year-old university student.
Samaa Jaber sat on a bench as her 6-year-old daughter Zeinab and 18-month-old son Fadel played at her feet. Her husband is a guerrilla fighter with the Shiite Muslim Amal movement that is fighting Israel along with Hezbollah.
"I took the children and came here today. He doesn't know I did this, but I got too scared at home alone with them," said the woman who traveled to Beirut from the southern town of Nabatiyeh.
Little Zeinab said she was happy about the adventure of sleeping in a park. "But I had no time to bring my clothes and toys. Do you have anything for me?" she asked.
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