Wavel Refugee Camp: A Photo Essay

Wavel is a Palestinian refugee camp located in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, on the outskirts of Baalbek. Originally a French military base during the colonial era, Palestinian refugees inhabited 12 military barracks shortly after the Palestinian el-Nakba (theCatastrophe) in 1948, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees were forced from Palestine through the creation of the state of Israel. Today Wavel is home to approximately 8000 refugees, a significant segment of which continue to reside in the now dilapidated French barracks. One of Lebanon’s smallest and most impoverished refugee camps, Wavel receives limited attention from NGO’s and services directed toward camps such as located near major Lebanese centers such as Saida and Beirut. The photos in this album were taken by Stefan Christoff of the Indepdent Media Center of Beirut: www.beirut.indymedia.org