Crown Princess Victorias tears after the children's gesture
Crown Princess Victoria wiped a few emotional tears after visiting the Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut.
Three girls wearing Swedish blue-yellow traditional costumes had learned the Swedish national anthem and welcomed the Crown Princess with "Du gamla du fria".
- How nice. Thank you very much, said the crown princess and folded joyful years.
Several armed guards from Palestinian groups are stuck with their automatic weapons at the refugee camp in the southern suburbs. They know that Sweden's Crown Princess couple, as well as minister Lena Hallengren and a Swedish delegation visit the camp.
Guards get directions to be vigilant. Nothing shall go wrong.
The misery in the camp is significant. At least 5 people have died here recently because of electric shocks.
- You see how the power cables hang along the walls, says a man when the Crown Princess couple gets into the small alleys of the camp.
At least 25,000 Palestinians and several thousand Syrian refugees live in the camp founded in 1948. The Crown Princess looks curiously at the houses and on the people. She asks UN staff how people live here - how they get water, electricity and how they deal with waste disposal.
An elderly lady is able to penetrate the guard and comes face to face with the crown princess. She speaks Arabic and aa UN official interprets a part of what she says. Her name is Fatima al-Ali.
- I have my roots in Kuwaykat village in Palestine, but I don't remember when we fled from Palestine to Lebanon. I was little. We fled to southern Lebanon and then we ended up here. I grew up here in the camp, says the 69-year-old lady when Expressen meets her and tells what she wanted to say to the Crown Princess:
- What I wanted to say to the Crown Princess is that I, my widowed daughter and her four children, live in this simple room. My daughter's husband died on cancer two years ago. My daughter worked as a cleaning worker at a UNRWA office but she was fired. Now we have no one who provides us, says Fatima, crying.
Fatima emphasizes that she did not get past the guards to beg for money. All she wanted was to tell the Crown Princess about how she lives.
- I felt she's a nice person and has a good heart. I saw it in her eyes. That's why I dared take me all the way to her, says Fatima.
Her daughter Layla Mackieh sits next to her mother and adds:
- We have no future here. But, now we live for the day. All I want is to have a job to support my children and nothing else, Layla says.
At UNRWA's girls school they were welcomed by a group of girls dressed in Swedish traditional clothes singing "Du gamla du fria". Before Victoria thanks the girls, some emotional tears fall.
- We have memorized the national anthem in three days. We don't speak Swedish and have never been in Sweden. Our teacher downloaded the National Anthem and we learned the words out there. But, we understand what that means, says Hala Snoubar who sang the national anthem.
Crown Princess Victoria spoke at the stage at the Grand Serail to over 1500 participants in the Multi-Stakeholder SDG Forum conference. There she told about her childhood when she went fishing on the Baltic Sea together with her father King Carl Gustaf - and highlighted the environmental problems.
The Crown Princess also received a guided tour of Beirut Souqs. The guide was no less than Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
- Both of them promised me to come back as tourists, said prime minister Hariri.
Kronprinsessan Victorias tårar efter barnens gest