After one month of bombardment and blanket evacuation orders by Israeli forces, more than 1 million people in Lebanon have been forcibly displaced. Among the most vulnerable are migrant workers from African and Southeast Asian countries, as well as other minorities who are increasingly cut off from humanitarian assistance.
As they struggle to afford medical care and navigate restrictive legal systems, displaced migrant communities are now trapped between the impacts of war and a humanitarian response that often excludes them. The International Organization for Migration estimates that around 30 percent of the identified migrant population in Lebanon (approximately 48,000 people) are displaced or living in high-risk areas.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is providing care to displaced people across Lebanon, including migrant workers and other minorities. Our response includes supporting local community kitchens that deliver meals to displaced migrants and people living in areas that are high-risk or subject to blanket evacuation orders. MSF has also distributed more than 2,000 relief items to over 100 migrant community houses and shelters, including blankets, mattresses, and hygiene kits.
Medical referrals have doubled at Bourj Hammoud clinic
In response to the growing needs arising from Israel’s escalation of attacks, MSF has expanded our mobile clinics to reach forcibly displaced communities Beirut and surrounding areas. Our teams are also providing care at the MSF clinic in Bourj Hammoud, a northern suburb of Beirut. Together, the Bourj Hammoud clinic and two mobile clinics are now providing about 3,000 consultations per month.
Since early March, medical referrals from MSF’s Bourj Hammoud clinic have doubled, with many patients requiring blood transfusions, intensive care admissions, or surgery. Other humanitarian organizations are struggling to fill gaps due to lack of funding, leaving many patients without access to lifesaving care.
Ahmad, displaced migrant worker
“Sometimes I regret having children because I cannot protect them”
I used to live in the south of Lebanon. We witnessed the first war in 2024. Now here we are again, living through a second one.
We fled with nothing, just trying to survive, until we reached Tibnine Hspital [in south Lebanon]. I have my wife and my five children with me; we are all scared and exhausted.
“I was living in Dahiyeh [a suburb in southern Beirut] when the bombardment started,” explains Salam, a displaced migrant receiving health care from an MSF mobile clinic in Ghosta, Mount Lebanon. “We fled that same night, not knowing where to go. We ended up on the road, searching for shelter, knocking on doors that wouldn’t open, asking for help that never came. There was nowhere for us. No safety. Just the road beneath us.”
The plight of migrant workers in Lebanon
MSF teams in Lebanon are responding to the health needs of migrants abused under the kafala sponsorship system.
Read moreMigrants are being even more sidelined
Most migrant workers in Lebanon come from Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka to do domestic and other blue-collar work. They have been systematically marginalized under Lebanon’s kafala (sponsorship) system, which grants them minimal rights, including health coverage.
Migrant communities in Lebanon already face significant economic, legal, and social barriers to accessing basic services. Many are now sheltering in overcrowded accommodations arranged by community leaders, or sleeping on the streets. Some report being explicitly turned away, discriminated against, or deprioritized from formal collective shelters in favor of Lebanese nationals.
“Even before Israel’s latest military escalation in Lebanon, migrants’ access to health care was severely limited by language barriers, systematic discrimination, cost of health services, and residency status,” says AbdelHalim Abdallah, MSF project coordinator in Beirut. “Now, with nearly a fifth of the country’s population forcibly displaced, migrants are becoming even more pushed to the sidelines, with devastating consequences to their health and survival.”
On March 29, MSF treated over 300 migrant patients in out Bourj Hammoud clinic and two mobile clinic locations in Beirut and Saida. Over 170 patients from Ethiopia and Bangladesh sought MSF’s health care services in Saida alone. Most of them were either displaced or hadn’t had access to health care for months. That day, the team had to send two babies to the emergency room. The patients kept flowing in.
Around one-quarter of the consultations MSF teams have provided to migrant communities are for patients with chronic illnesses. Many of these patients have been cut off from their medication due to forced displacement or other barriers to accessing health care. MSF teams are also observing significant gaps in access to women’s health care and mental health services, even in places where primary health care is being provided by other actors.
Adeela, Sudanese refugee
“I have not lived a single day of safety in my entire life”
I was born into war. I grew up in war. I have never known anything else.
I fled Darfur, Sudan, trying to escape the war. I remember eating tree leaves just to survive.
I left Sudan for Lebanon thinking maybe, finally, I would find safety. But before that, I passed through Syria. Then I was smuggled into Lebanon two years ago. We walked for three days in the mountains between Syria and Lebanon — three days of fear, hunger, and exhaustion.
MSF's work with migrants in Lebanon
MSF has been providing specialized care for migrant communities in Lebanon since 2019 through the support of volunteer community health educators who speak Amharic, Bangla, Sinhala, French, English, and Arabic. These volunteers ensure that migrant patients can communicate with our healthcare professionals.
Since 2024, MSF’s clinic in Bourj Hammoud has been providing primary health care, mental health support, sexual and reproductive care, social services as well as health promotion. To scale-up our response to the current escalation, the clinic is now open six days per week, and has two mobile medical units covering the needs of migrant workers and displaced Lebanese families in over 20 locations in neighboring districts in Mount Lebanon.
