sectarian

The CDF works across Lebanon’s sectarian divide.

At least 2,200 people have been killed in the country, according to the Lebanese health ministry, and 1.2 million displaced, mostly Shia Muslims, heightening sectarian tensions and adding pressure on public services that were already struggling after years of a severe economic crisis.

However, an influx of people from the predominantly Shia Muslim areas where the Iran-backed group has a strong presence - Dahieh, south Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley in the east - into places which are majority Sunni Muslim and Christian also risk exacerbating sectarian divisions in a country where memories of the 1975-1990 civil war are still vivid.

Although residents may feel reassured by the neighbourhood watch, some worry that such initiative carries echoes of the civil war, when sectarian militias controlled different areas of Beirut.

Fatima didn’t feel there was any sectarian tension against her as a Shia, but another man who stayed in the building with his five children had a different view.