Protesters gather in the rain in front of UNRWA's office in Tripoli. (Credit: Michel Hallak/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Tens of Palestinians displaced from Syria gathered despite heavy rain to protest in front of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees offices in Tripoli on Monday, L’Orient Today’s correspondent in the North reported.
Here’s what we know:
• Protesters gathered to denounce a decision they claim UNRWA has made to reduce monthly payments to the refugees of their category,
• A statement issued by the demonstrators said that protests will “increase gradually and we will not back down until the decision is canceled … This decision is shocking and unethical amid very hard economic and social times.”
• “This decision represents an administrative and ethical failure in securing funding sources … we condemn this decision and hold UNRWA fully responsible for the consequences of this disastrous decision,” the statement continued.
• The protesters also submitted an open letter to the commissioner-general of UNRWA, Phillip Lazzarini, the director of UNRWA affairs in Lebanon, Claudio Cordone, and the secretary-general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, who is on a visit to Lebanon and who the state-run National News Agency reported as having visited an UNRWA school in Tripoli on Monday. The letter includes a call to “immediately reverse the unjust decision to reduce the cash assistance provided to Palestinian refugees displaced from Syria to Lebanon and work to increase its value and distribute it periodically and regularly and not to prejudice it under any circumstances."
• According to the UN, there are approximately 192,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, with 17,706 of those having been displaced from Syria.