A newborn girl born in a makeshift tent near Beirut’s waterfront is struggling to survive the same conditions that forced her family to flee Israeli airstrikes in the Lebanese capital’s Dahiyeh suburbs. Shiman came into the world on March 28 in unsanitary conditions, her mother unable to afford hospital delivery even as the family’s home lay in ruins from an airstrike.
The birth reflects a broader humanitarian crisis unfolding in Lebanon, where more than 1 million people have been displaced by war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah. The United Nations warns that 13,500 pregnant women and more than 1,500 additional deliveries are expected in displacement camps with limited access to maternal care.
A desperate flight
Shiman came into the world on March 28 in a tent along Beirut’s waterfront, her first weeks of life defined by the same chaos that forced her family to flee Israeli airstrikes destroying their home in the Lebanese capital’s Dahiyeh suburbs. At 16 days old, the newborn had known nothing but the stench of mildewed blankets, the sting of swarming insects, and the screams of warplanes striking the city.
Her mother, Haifa Kenjo, 34, had been nine months pregnant when the explosions shook their house. She, her husband, and their 2-year-old son Khalid ran for their lives in sandals and pajamas. “They had no time to bring anything,” Kenjo said, describing those moments when the family fled with no possessions, no money, no supplies.
Birth in emergency conditions
They took refuge in a donated tent near downtown Beirut, securing the tarp with rocks as wind threatened to rip it away. When labor began on March 28, Kenjo called an ambulance. Her husband scraped together $40 for the hospital admission fee. But the $500 cost of delivery itself remained out of reach—that money had been buried in the ruins of their home, destroyed in an airstrike the week before.
The family called a midwife instead. “Umm Ali did her best,” Kenjo said of the woman who attended the delivery, “but the tent was filthy. The rain seeped inside.”
Shiman arrived into conditions nothing like the hospital birth Kenjo had planned. With her first son Khalid, she had delivered at Beirut’s main public hospital without cost. But as a Syrian immigrant married to a Lebanese man, Kenjo must pay for hospital access that is free for Lebanese citizens—a barrier that, combined with her family’s sudden homelessness, eliminated any medical option.
Survival in crisis
Shiman arrived to a mother unable to produce milk. Infant formula costs more than her father earns in a day installing water tanks. Volunteers passing out food in the displacement camp provided just enough formula for the next few days.
The newborn does not cry like other infants. She coughs. Her skin is cold and clammy, pockmarked with insect bites. “She is so precious,” Kenjo said while stroking her baby girl. “But for her we have nothing. We have less than zero.”
A humanitarian emergency
Shiman’s birth is one of thousands occurring in displacement camps across Lebanon as war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah has created a humanitarian emergency. According to the United Nations’ sexual and reproductive health agency, more than 1 million people have been uprooted by the conflict. Among them are 13,500 pregnant women, with more than 1,500 additional deliveries expected in the coming month. Many struggle to access adequate maternal care, the agency warned this week.
For Kenjo and her newborn daughter, the road ahead offers no clear shelter, no formula secured beyond a few days, and no access to the medical care that might ease the struggle for survival that has defined Shiman’s first weeks of life.