A renewed Israeli bombing campaign of Lebanon has as of today (March 4th 2026) killed at least 70 people and displaced 80,000. As the situation across the Middle East continues to deteriorate, migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are also once again forced to flee as entire villages and communities come under the threat of aerial attacks. We need your help today.
Egna Legna Besidet (Amharic language term, loosely translates to “migrants for migrants”), is a Beirut based migrant domestic worker women run humanitarian and advocacy organization. We’ve been on the ground distributing emergency humanitarian aid to migrant domestic workers across Lebanon, with many of them being displaced and forced to seek shelter in abandoned buildings or in the open on the streets as a result of airstrikes that have devastated the country since 2024. Our organization is still addressing the demand for clothes, food (both dry food and hot meals), sanitary basics, rent assistance and other essentials for migrants and their families who have been displaced for over a year now. And now, the problem is set to become far worse.
Major humanitarian organizations and charities tend to prioritize or only serve Lebanese citizens, with even international agencies typically neglecting migrant domestic workers, who come from Asia and Africa, and are typically left to fend for themselves by their own embassies. Egna Legna Besidet, based in Lebanon and registered in Ethiopia and Canada, is often the only organization serving migrant workers in the country, and we’re trusted to serve our communities, because we are part of those same communities, as current and former migrant domestic workers from Asia and Africa ourselves. We’ve mobilized our teams to crisis after crisis in Lebanon, from the economic crash and pandemic in 2020, to the Beirut explosion that same year, to the mass displacement and deaths caused by Israeli jets from 2024 to present. Our efforts saw us awarded the World Humanitarian Day award by the United Nations in 2023.
We need your assistance today, and would truly appreciate your effort to provide basic humanitarian supplies, shelter and for those who need it, medical care for migrant workers in Lebanon, who number in the hundreds of thousands. Many settle, marry and have children here, meaning our mandate includes providing care primarily for women and children. Migrant domestic workers are a core part of Lebanese society, and when Lebanon suffers we suffer alongside the country. Help us provide care for Lebanon’s caregivers in their time of need.
Some international media coverage of our service over the years, including during previous crisis periods.
Al Jazeera: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CAqhYEdhfj9/?igsh=ZnAzYmZ0Z3ZtNTd6
Associated Press: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGJNmOhHqQs
CNN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FIHeNu856Y
Middle East Eye https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/lebanon-two-thirds-migrant-worker-women-survivors-sexual-harassment
We have also repatriated at least a thousand migrants who needed to return home over the past five years. And we’ve enabled access to lawyers and legal assistance for hundreds of migrants jailed on false charges of theft, or for the “crime” of fleeing an abusive employer (which under the kafala system can lead to arrest). We’ve produced research on the discriminatory failures of the judicial system with the hope of pushing for badly needed reform. More at these links:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12021835/
On behalf of everyone at Egna Legna Besidet, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Banchi Yimer,
Executive Director, Egna Legna Besidet.
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