“THE FIGHTING IS extremely brutal.” – Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos, United Nations.

Two-and-a-half years after violence erupted in Syria, hundreds of thousands of families have fled the conflict and have set up temporary existences in refugee camps in neighbouring countries.

A growing humanitarian crisis has led to pleas from relief agencies for ceasefires and access to the worst-affected areas.

This week, it emerged that the war-torn nation is now suffering from a polio outbreak.

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) said it received reports on 17 October of a cluster of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases, used to describe a sudden onset of the disease. Syria is already considered at high-risk for this and other vaccine-preventable diseases, but it has not experienced a case of polio since 1999.

Since March 2011, more than two million people have left Syria for Turkey, the Lebanon, Jordan and other nearby countries. A further 4.5 million Syrians are displaced within their home country.

However, they are the luckier ones. More than 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Press Association photographer Danny Lawson was in the Lebanon this week, meeting refugees trying to recover and piece together a life away from home.

Hanady Rakhan (left) is the mother of three-year-old Limar (centre) who was deafened in a bomb blast. They sit with her sister Tasnim in their new home in the Badawi refugee camp in Lebanon.

Limar stands in the doorway.

Hanady poses for the camera.

Syrian refugee Zeinab Gharibt, 24, holds her son Omar Gharibt (centre) in the outskirts of Tripoli in Lebanon. The family fled their home in Syria when its house was destroyed and Zeinab’s brother-in-law was killed during the fighting.

A general view of the Badawi refugee camp in the Lebanon.

Three-year-old Limar, who was deafened in a bomb blast, stands in her home in the Badawi refugee camp in Lebanon.

A child plays with a toy gun in the Badawi Camp refugee in Lebanon.

Twenty-four year-old Syrian refugee Zeinab Gharibt.

21-month-old Syrian refugee Omar Gharibt, cries as he stands in the outskirts of Tripoli in Lebanon.

A general view of posters in the Badawi refugee camp in Lebanon.

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