A Syrian child in a refugee camp in Deir Zenoun in the Bekaa (Credit: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)
Lebanon officially told the UN on Saturday that it could no longer bear the presence on its territory of 1.5 million Syrian refugees who have fled the war that has ravaged their country since 2011. Lebanon has been in the grips of a crippling economic crisis since 2019.
During a meeting with the representative in Lebanon of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ayaki Ito, Social Affairs Minister Hector Hajjar conveyed to the UN official the official position of the Lebanese government regarding the issue of Syrian refugees. This interview took place the day after a meeting of the ministerial committee in charge of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, at the end of which Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram, said that Lebanon "can no longer be the police of other countries" in the issue of illegal emigration and Syrian refugees.
According to a statement from Hajjar's press office, the minister explained to the UNHCR representative that "Lebanon respects the principle of refusing any forced return of the displaced, but the situation is untenable and the Lebanese state can no longer bear the cost of maintaining the security of the camps of the displaced and the areas where they are located."
"It can no longer bear the burden of this issue that serves the interest of other states," Hajjar added, without specifying to which countries he was referring.
"The Lebanese state has always obtained aid below its annual needs, while 35 percent of the population is made up of refugees and displaced persons," the minister continued. "Last year, Lebanon obtained $1.69 billion in aid while the amount promised was $2 billion," he added. The minister finally stressed that the state "has suffered great losses in recent years, as the displaced took advantage of products and commodities subsidized by the state, such as medicines, bread, fuel, not to mention the overcrowding of prisons and security incidents, as well as competition with the Lebanese workforce, border control and illegal immigration. Hajjar said that the Syrian refugee issue will be discussed at a cabinet session scheduled for next Thursday.
Last week, a boat carrying illegal migrants — Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian — sank off Qalamoun, south of Tripoli in North Lebanon, causing the death of at least six people and leaving about 30 missing. This tragedy brought back the thorny issue of Syrian refugees. The Lebanese authorities believe that the Syrian territory is safe again and are calling for the return of the refugees without linking this to a political solution to the war. But the UN and many experts believe that the refugees, most of whom have fled the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, will be in danger in the areas controlled by the regime, with many cases of disappearance, torture and forced recruitment into the army being reported.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.
