Not far from Beirut's heavily bombed southern suburbs, dozens of women from Sierra Leone have taken refuge in a dilapidated warehouse turned shelter. After Israeli forces began heavily striking Lebanon around a month ago, many of them were separated from their employers, some of them sleeping on the streets for weeks. Eventually they each were guided to a volunteer-run shelter -- an old concrete structure on the outskirts of Beirut. "Before it was better, but like, the fighting was very hard for us in Sabra [in southern Beirut], it was tough for us," says one Sierra Leonean woman. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES