CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports from a refugee settlement in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, which borders Syria. It's estimated that nearly 1.5 million Syrians have fled to Lebanon to escape the ongoing violent conflicts.
At a makeshift refugee area, just half a mile from the Syrian border, two young girls colored pictures and sang songs. They both left Syria without their parents.
More than a million Syrian children were forced to leave their homes and move into refugee camps like this one, located in Zahle, Lebanon. Many of the child refugees are put to work on farms nearby, where they earn just $2 a day.
According to aid group workers, the sheriff in this Lebanon border town near Syria charges the refugees who set up shelter in the dirt here $100 a month.
This 22-year-old mother fled Syria with her children four months ago, leaving her husband behind. The burn scars visible on her 4-year-old's arm are the result of an explosion on the streets of her hometown of Homs. Her children are much safer now, but she questions her decision to leave. At the camp, they all sleep on a cement floor, and her 8-month-old son is now so severely malnourished, it's stunting his growth.
Families seeking refuge in Lebanon are faced with the challenge of not being wanted. The government does not sanction any official refugee camps or assist with fixed water facilities or sanitation systems in camps. Refugees tell CNN they want to go home, back to Syria, but are afraid for the safety of their families.
Refugees line up for a free doctor checkup at a camp half a mile from the Syria border. The children here live in filthy conditions. No surprise, the doctors from this UNICEF mobile clinic say they treat hundreds of kids a day for lice, scabies, malnutrition and respiratory infections.
These Syrian children smile, despite the horrors of life in the refugee camp. After fleeing the violence of their home country, refugees say they are not wanted in their adopted one.
A Syrian looking for safety crosses the border into Lebanon every 15 seconds. Most of the children can be found without their parents, who stay in Syria to work and protect their homes. This boy, age 9, walks with his grandmother back to their tent. He told Gupta's producer, Danielle Dellorto, that he asks every day if they can go back home to Syria.
Forced from the comforts of their homes, into often filthy refugee settlements in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, these Syrian children are a lesson in resilience.
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Syrian refugees: The face of resilience
Bekaa Valley, Lebanon (CNN) -- After I became a father, I found covering the stories of refugees more heart-wrenching than ever before. Of course, it is the children that immediately draw your attention. It is their wide-eyed fascination with everything you do. They want to touch my producer Danielle's hair and play with the gadgets of my cameraman, Clayton. They exchange high fives, give the peace sign, and gamely practice their English on me.
I try not to let my mind wander to the place that imagines what the lives of these sweet children will be like weeks or months from now. They are images nobody should ever see. People starve to death here.
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For the past several days, I had been in refugee camps along the border between Syria and Lebanon. Over the past 12 years, I have covered wars, natural disasters and other tragedies as a medical reporter, which meant the very worst stories filtered down to me. I remember a child who lost both her legs after stepping on a land mine in Iraq. I remember a family standing in a decimated home in Sri Lanka, having lost all it owned. In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, I saw young children searching for their parents in large garbage dumpsters, hoping to catch a final glimpse of them. Pakistan was full of stories of families swept away by the floods that soaked one-fifth of the nation. Some of the very worst stories are happening again.
I now know the look of eyes that have not seen food for too long. Dr. Sanjay Gupta
None of this is easy to write.
I am here because I believe the few minutes you spend reading this firsthand dispatch will give you a clearer idea of what is unfolding here. While you may not be able to locate the Bekaa Valley on a map, or even Damascus for that matter, stories about health are universal and serve as a common denominator all over the planet.
Over the past two years, 720,000 registered refugees have made the dangerous crossing from Syria into Lebanon. According to aid organizations on the ground, at least that many more have also come across illegally. In a country of 4 million people, roughly one in four is now a refugee. Lebanon is buckling under the weight of these refugees, leading to abysmal conditions. In the largest camp in Bekaa Valley, there is no fixed water supply or sanitation. There are streams of putrid waste snaking their way through the camps. And there is not enough food.
As a dad, you get pretty good at judging the age of children, based on their size. Here, nothing makes sense. There are 8-month-olds who look closer in age to newborns, and 10-year-olds who look 5. And often, it is the young child forced to care for an even younger child.
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In a place like this, you can quickly distinguish the children who are being breast-fed from those who are not. While the breast-fed children are getting carbohydrates, fats and proteins, they are not getting enough calories overall. It is tough, after all, when the mother has not had anything to eat for days herself. The child's hair looks dull, the skin looks thin and the body looks emaciated. It is called marasmus, and it shouldn't typically happen to a breast-fed baby.
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Again, nothing here is typical.
The older children who are able to obtain any sort of calories are not getting enough proteins in their diet. They eat primarily just grains. Their small bodies look bloated and they often have swelling in their tiny feet. It also has a name: kwashiorkor. I learned much of this in medical school, and even then I prayed to never see it firsthand.
Sadly, I now know the look of eyes that have not seen food for too long. They can look at nothing else. It is not a hopeful look, but a sad resignation that despite their deep hunger, these morsels of basic food are not meant for them.
If you are a parent or have any compassion whatsoever, seeing those eyes will bring you to your knees.
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Truth is, these are my children. They are the children of the world. Dr. Sanjay Gupta
To simply live in a makeshift tent on a 10-by-10-foot plot of dirt, some of the landowners in Bekaa Valley are charging $100 a month. It would almost be laughable except as so often happens -- the children bear the brunt of this hardship. They work in the fields for $2 a day, beg under bridges and turn to prostitution.
Truth is, I feel guilty the moment I arrive, knowing I will leave and wave wildly at the tiny little friends running alongside our car -- as if that will somehow make things any better for them. These children will fill your daytime thoughts and your dreams at night. Their minds are brimming with dreams unrealized and their hearts are so full of hope.
I often think of my own children and how disappointed they would be that their daddy couldn't do more to help kids like them.
It would be missing the point to say that I see the eyes of my own children, when I look into the children's eyes of Bekaa Valley. Truth is, these are my children. They are the children of the world, Many of them will persevere, and may even make it home to a hopefully more stable way of life. But, for the time being -- this is the price they pay as refugees in Lebanon, September 2013.