On the Syria border: High chaos, high anxiety

Kerry Sanders Correspondent • Profile

BEIRUT, Lebanon — There were very few people at the Syria-Lebanon border heading in the direction I was going — toward Beirut.

The scene in the opposite direction, however, was very different.

Busloads of people were arriving and then piling up into a tiny little office with their passports. They were shouting and were highly anxious.

Basically, everyone was looking for the quick stamp in their passport so they could get out. But it didn’t look like anybody was getting anything quickly.

On top of that, it’s extremely hot here right now. The long wait in 90-plus weather — while people were afraid that they may not get out before another bomb drops — definitely created a high-energy, high-anxiety situation. 

There was a “get me outta Dodge” mentality where people are trying to get out as fast as they can and don’t really have plans. The attitude seemed to be: get out, get into Syria, go to Damascus and figure it out from there.

On the road
There are basically five major roads in and out of Lebanon, and four of them have effectively been cut off by the bombings. The one that is left is a single route to the north at the Syria-Lebanon border.

While we were there at around mid-day on Tuesday, at least seven busloads pulled up and there were about 80 people per bus. There were all sorts of buses traveling from Beirut to the border — from air conditioned coaches, to those with police escort. All were piling off to get their passports stamped by Syrian officials.

Along the road from Beirut, there was a steady stream of cars, many of them with luggage piled on racks or with trunks overflowing with luggage and tied down.

I saw one car that looked like a Mercedes 240 Diesel and I think I counted about nine or ten people piled into that one car. They were sitting on one another's laps, squashed in there with the luggage on the top and just doing whatever they could to get as many people out from this one family as they could.

NBC VIDEO Some Americans evacuated, hundreds wait July 18: At least 120 Americans were flown out of Lebanon by helicopter Tuesday, while hundreds more wait for a passenger ship to take them to Cyprus. MSNBC

It was a telling picture of the desperate lengths that people are taking to get out of Lebanon. If there is a car moving north, they are going to pile as many people as possible into it.

The drive from Beirut to the border is probably about two hours long, then there is the wait to get passports stamped at the border, and then another at least another three hours' drive to Damascus.

Not your typical “refugee”
Often when you hear the word refugee you think of somebody who has wrapped up their clothes in a blanket and has rushed out of their home. This is not quite that picture of a refugee I saw today.

For instance, Rhonda Campbell, a Canadian of Lebanese descent who looked to be about 50, was wearing a sequined halter top. Her hair was perfectly set, her finger nails were perfectly painted, and it almost appeared as if she was going out for an evening on the town. Instead, she was up on the Lebanese-Syria border with her nine-year-old daughter.

She was extremely angry, but a war was not going to stop Campbell from getting all dressed up for her trip out of Lebanon. 

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