THE aisles of the Bekaai supermarket in Saida, Lebanon’s third biggest city, are teeming with Syrians. They are stocking up on oil, rice, sugar and lentils. Each clutches a gleaming blue MasterCard, which guarantees $27-worth of food per person a month, courtesy of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP). That is hardly enough, Syrians claim. Rents are rising—many refugees pay more than $500 a month for a room—and there is no space for their children in Lebanon’s overcrowded schools. “My children haven’t been to school in two years” complains Hajjat, a Syrian mother of three.
