With 59 boxes of medication and miscellaneous hygienic products in the backseat of his car, the 40-year-old Rifai drove through the rugged terrain separating Syria from Lebanon and crossed illegally into to the border town of Arsal, where he managed to find an apartment.
He made the rounds to Arsal's chronically under-stocked medical facilities, including a collection of clinics under the town's mosque run by Dr. Kassem al-Zein, whom he knew back in Syria.
However, locals in Arsal argue the arrest was arbitrary as they've been counting on cheaper medication, as well as fuel, from Syria for years prior to the 2011 uprising.
Zein's eight facilities as well as the nearby hospital's emergency room treat up to 1,000 patients per day, most among the over 80,000 Syrian refugee population, more than double that of the Lebanese town.
An opposition-aligned Syrian field doctor based in Arsal, who chose to be identified as Dr. Saleh, said he relied on smuggled medicine to treat wounded combatants on the front lines and recuperating in Arsal's outskirts. He described the current shortage of medicine in Arsal as "severe".
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