Female migrant workers at a shelter hosting them after spending days on the streets. Photo taken on Oct.4. (Credit: Olivia Le Poidevin)
BEIRUT – Three days. This is how long it took Aysatsu, a young Sierra Leonean migrant domestic worker to reach Beirut by foot, from a village in southern Lebanon whose name she didn’t know. When Israeli bombings intensified late September, after almost a year of cross-border fire with Hezbollah, Aysatsu’s employer took the family’s seven children and fled the country, leaving Aysatsu behind in their house, alone.“She told me the work agency would come and get me,” Aysatsu said. But the agents never came. And when the bombardments got too close, it was her turn to flee. Three days of walking led her to the streets of Beirut’s Ramlet al-Bayda neighborhood, where the Sierra Leone consulate is housed. On the sidewalks facing their home country’s consulate or on the beach nearby, Aysatsu and her compatriots spent their nights sleeping out in...
BEIRUT – Three days. This is how long it took Aysatsu, a young Sierra Leonean migrant domestic worker to reach Beirut by foot, from a village in southern Lebanon whose name she didn’t know. When Israeli bombings intensified late September, after almost a year of cross-border fire with Hezbollah, Aysatsu’s employer took the family’s seven children and fled the country, leaving Aysatsu behind in their house, alone.“She told me the work agency would come and get me,” Aysatsu said. But the agents never came. And when the bombardments got too close, it was her turn to flee. Three days of walking led her to the streets of Beirut’s Ramlet al-Bayda neighborhood, where the Sierra Leone consulate is housed. On the sidewalks facing their home country’s consulate or on the beach nearby, Aysatsu and her compatriots spent their nights...
