Daily Star: Christians Slowly Fade from Tripoli

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Christians slowly fade from Tripoli’s troubled landscape

 by Jana El Hassan


Recent clashes and bouts of violence have flared in Tripoli, fostering negative perceptions of the country’s second largest city, once a paragon of coexistence.

Previous episodes of fighting, dating back to the Civil War period, have pushed the majority of Christians out of the city while many of those who remain are adamant about “maintaining their roots.”
There is no official count of Christians residing in Tripoli, but according to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Tripoli-Koura, the population has declined from 22 percent in the 1970s to 6 percent today.

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The frequent clashes in the north have definitely succeeded in driving some Christians out of the city.
In 2007, following several months of battles between Fatah al-Islam, an Islamist militant organization, and the Army in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared near Tripoli, Melissa Rahban and her family decided to move to Koura.

“We moved to Dahr al-Ain and rented a small apartment there. It was supposed to be for an interim period but I was able to get a job in one of the schools here and enrolled the kids,” she said.

“I still go there, of course. I have many relatives in Mina but I don’t think about moving back to Tripoli, It may not be Kandahar, but it certainly isn’t a place to call home anymore.”