A severe overnight fire destroyed tents at a Syrian refugee camp in eastern Lebanon, leaving 75 families homeless. The incident happened on Saada Road in Bar Elias, a town in the Zahle district of the Bekaa Valley.
The camp housed about 486 people fleeing the conflict in neighbouring Syria. Reports on the exact scale of the damage varied.
Anadolu news agency reported that all 59 tents in the camp burned down, with no injuries recorded.
Lebanon’s National News Agency gave a different assessment. Citing the Directorate General of Civil Defense, the agency reported on Sunday morning that the blaze ruined 30 tents and a single vehicle.
The Civil Defense statement confirmed that one person was hospitalised for smoke inhalation.
Fire crews from several stations rushed to extinguish the flames. Ambulance teams took the injured person to Al-Nasra Hospital in Bar Elias for treatment.
This disaster adds to the severe challenges facing Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The country has sheltered large populations displaced by the war that began in Syria in 2011.
Lebanese authorities estimated in January that about 1.5 million Syrian refugees lived across the nation. This total included nearly 880,000 individuals registered with the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.
The Lebanese government tried to arrange departures by launching a voluntary return program in June 2025.
By the end of that year, UNHCR annual reports confirmed or estimated that more than 500,000 Syrian refugees had left Lebanon. Nearly 240,300 of those departures were verified as voluntary returns.
