Syrian refugees salvage belongings from the wreckage of their shelters at a camp set on fire overnight in the northern Lebanese town of Bhanine.

Lebanese authorities arrested eight people after a fire ripped through a refugee camp in the country’s north on Saturday evening, displacing hundreds in a dispute that appeared to pit Syrian refugees against their hosts.

A fire was started in the informal camp in the town of Miniyeh after an argument between Syrian labourers and a local farm owner.

Camp residents says that a Syrian man in the camp demanded unpaid wages from his local employer.

Angered, the farm owner rallied armed members of his extended family, who barged into the camp firing weapons in the air.

Sabiq Helew 36 says he didn’t know where it was coming from, who fled Syria’s Hasakah province in 2013.

Mr Helew says youths from the camp then set fire to a tent in the centre of the community, which houses about 80 Syrian families, most of whom have fled the civil war.

The fire spread throughout the camp, destroying every shelter and leaving hundreds of displaced people homeless once more.

On Sunday, as children played in the ashy remains of the camp, dozens of soldiers stood watch.

Lebanon’s army says it arrested two Lebanese and six Syrians in connection with the blaze.

Helew says he helped his four children over a wall surrounding the camp to escape the flames and gunshots.

“I pushed my wife and children over the wall, then I climbed over the wall, we hid in the trees behind until 2am”.

“I was afraid to come out. I knew that if one tent burns, all the tents will burn.”

As tents smouldered in the winter sun on Sunday, Syrians and Lebanese were desperate to stress that the actions were by only a small minority, and not a symptom of worsening relations between the two communities.

Yahya Bikai, 40, a Lebanese man who owns a building next to the camp, says he hoped the area could be rebuilt to give shelter to Syrians who had lost their tents.

Bikai says it’s finished, it was a personal issue about money and it’s nothing to do with Lebanese versus Syrians.

As the fire began to spread, it was locals who rushed to the aid of those in the camp, bringing water and sand to fight the flames.

Others in the town, and the nearby city of Tripoli, opened their doors to the displaced.

Mr Helew says for all of the goodwill of most Lebanese he was putting his faith elsewhere.

“The Lebanese have been very good to us but the UN needs to rebuild this camp. We can rely on only them. Them, and God.”

Last month almost 300 Syrians were chased out of the Christian majority town of Bsharre in northern Lebanon after a Syrian was accused of murdering a local.

Lebanon hosts more than 1.5 million refugees but has been beset by its own problems in recent months, with the coronavirus and a financial crisis.

By Yazdaan Khan