🇱🇧🇸🇾Shahira: My Syrian Friend | Al Jazeera World

In 1990, Lebanon emerged from a 15-year civil war politically fractured and under the control of the Syrian army. Syrian troops eventually withdrew in 2005 but many Lebanese remained deeply wary of their neighbour to the north and east. In the two decades that followed, Lebanon continued to be dogged by regional, religious and political conflict - and Lebanon's efforts to stabilise have been frustrated by factionalism, fraught relations with Syria, Israeli interventions and internal divisions arising from Iran and Syria's backing of the Shia Muslim movement Hezbollah in south Lebanon. After the Syrian revolution and subsequent war in 2011, many wondered whether Lebanon could withstand yet another regional conflict.

Today, in a country roughly the same size as the US city of Los Angeles, Lebanon still hosts some 450,000 Palestinian refugees - and since 2011 roughly 980,000 Syrian refugees have fled over the border into Lebanon. Amid the humanitarian crisis, the Lebanese themselves feel torn between their long-standing resentment of Syria's prolonged military presence in their country and a desire to help their Arab neighbours.

It's a dilemma that filmmaker Raghida Skaff explores in Shahira: My Syrian Friend, in which she tells the story of her strong personal relationship with a seven-year-old Syrian girl whose family find themselves in her village of Zeghrine 30km east of Beirut.

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