In some cases, local municipalities refuse to allow them to be buried in local cemeteries, saying residents do not want to give up their grave spots to the refugees. In other cases, local residents and refugees have come up against each other, with residents forcing the refugees to remove the bodies and put them elsewhere.
One such incident involved a young girl who was also killed in a car crash. As she was being buried, the owners of the land stopped the burial, refusing to allow her to be buried in their land. After several mediation efforts by local parties, she was eventually buried in a plot of land in another village.
In Islam, it is paramount to bury the body as fast as possible. Leaving the body above the ground for days on end is considered disrespectful to the dead.
In one cemetery, a small plot was allocated to the refugees to bury their dead but without tombstones, forcing the buried to remain anonymous in their death.
Tensions have been rising between the local population and the refugees as the country attempts to deal with the influx of refugees fleeing the civil war in neighboring Syria, which is now entering its fifth year.
In one such informal settlement in the Bekaa town of Saadnayel, a number of Syrian elders who oversee the running of the camp gathered around a small stove inside one of the tents, attempting to stay warm against the biting cold outside.
Outside, children played in dirty puddles of melting snow that still blanketed the length of the Bekaa after a deadly storm hit the country over two weeks ago. The refugees were the hardest hit in the storm, struggling to stay alive in their makeshift tents while attempting to keep out the meters of snow that settled around them.
"When one of us dies, we struggle to find somewhere to bury them," Abu Khodr, an elder in one of the informal tent settlements located in Saadnayel, told Al Jazeera. "Sometimes they have to stay two or three days before we can find somewhere to bury them."
While individuals from the local community have donated plots of land in some areas for the Syrians to bury their dead, these are few and far between, leaving many others concerned over what they will do when their loved ones pass away.
Abu Khodr, who has been a refugee in Lebanon for the last three years after having fled his hometown of Qusayr, was visibly upset when he said: "Sometimes we're even forced to bury them in secret. More than once we've been left with no choice but to bury a body in the middle of the night.
"What other option are we left with?"
Saadnayel, a small town nestled in the Bekaa Valley, is well-known for its strong support of the Syrian revolution since it started in 2011. Today it holds up to 35,000 Syrian refugees, according to figures provided by the municipality. But it only has two cemeteries, one of which is already full. Even though a small extension has been built, its plots have already been reserved by the locals to bury their dead.
"This is becoming a big problem for us [Lebanese] and for the Syrian refugees," Khalil al-Shahimi, head of the municipality of Saadnayel, told Al Jazeera. "There's no space in the cemeteries to bury our own people, and we are facing issues from Lebanese who don't want their plots to be taken, and asking for [the Syrians] to be buried elsewhere."
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