Photo by: AFP

"We are deeply concerned about families, many with lots of small children, who were already living in extreme poverty and who have now lost their homes or been displaced," said Fatma Odaymat, a health officer with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Officials in Tripoli, 90 kilometres (56 miles) north of Beirut, estimate that some 20,000 people were directly or indirectly affected by the fighting which pitted Sunni Muslims in the Bab al-Tebbaneh neighbourhood against members of the Alawite community in nearby Jabal Mohsen. Alawites are an off-shoot of Shiite Islam. "Most of these people have lost their livelihoods since they worked at small jobs and were paid by the day," Mervat al-Hoz, a member of Tripoli's municipal council, told AFP. "They are now living in total misery."

She said 236 homes were destroyed by the clashes which first erupted in May and which left 23 people dead and more than 100 wounded. Some 800 families have been displaced, among them 260 Sunni families who have sought refuge in schools in the city.

Alawite families have mostly fled to Syria or to villages in the Akkar region north of Tripoli where relief agencies are scrambling to provide them with hygiene kits, food and medication. Cases of measles and mumps have already been reported, prompting officials to organise a vaccination campaign to prevent any outbreak of disease. "What worries us is what is going to happen to these people when schools reopen in a month's time," Odaymat said. "Many of them have lost everything. This is a region where the drop-out rate in schools was already at 55 percent," she added. "How will these kids approach the new school year?"