The road from Damascus

The war in Syria has seen up to 8m people flee internally of across borders in to neighbouring countries. Now Syrian refugees make up 20% of Lebanon's population - an incredible amount of people for a small and politically unstable country to absorb.

Lebanese papers are publishing more and more stories about how Syrian refugees are working for a pittance, undercutting Lebanese workers. One article I read highlighted how restaurants from Damascus have relocated to Beirut, bringing all their staff and their families with them.

This is al-Farouk a famous establishment in Damascus, apparently people would come half way across the country for their shawarma, so we decided to make a shorter journey up Hamra St to try it out ourselves. Unanimously we decided that the shawarma was excellent (I had the lamb), but the place was half empty and the staff tense. The negative news coverage and increasingly hostile reaction to Syrians is putting everyone on edge.

However, the figures for neighbouring Jordan hosting about 600,000 Syrian show a slight decrease in unemployment rates and an increase in GDP - so maybe having refugees and the UN and aid agencies that help support them, can be good for the economy too.