(Zaman Al Wasl)- Lebanese General Security has handed over 1000 Syrian refugees to the Syrian Intelligence on Thursday following major arrest campaign in camps of the border town of Arsal, human rights advocates said.
The head of the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research, Anwar al-Bunni, warned of the unknown fate of Syrian refugees, urging the International community to save lives of the returnees who were subjected to an arrest by the Syrian regime.
During the week, the Lebanese Army arrested 1000 Syrian refugees in Arsal, claiming 300 of them have no "Public Security Card" that allows them to be present on Lebanese territory, activists said.
The Lebanese media claimed that the arrest campaign was to arrest the wanted displaced.
Arsal's border camps are one of the largest along the Syrian border were about 80,000 Syrian refugees live in 117 camps near the Lebanese border with Syria.
Al-Bunni asserted via his his Facebook page that the regime policy is a breach to international and humanitarian laws.
The prominent dissident said the Lebanese authorities have the full responsibility for the lives of the Syrians in Lebanon and for the life of those who forced them to return to the criminal regime.
The security agency has been organizing what it says are voluntary returns of Syrian refugees since earlier this year.
Syrian activists voiced concern about the fate of the Syrian refugees returning from Lebanon after a statement by the Lebanese Caretaker Minister for Refugee Affairs in November, who assured that 20 Syrian refugees who had returned from Lebanon to Syria had been killed by regime forces.
“The lives of Syrian refugees returning from Lebanon to areas controlled by the Syrian regime are in danger,” Mouin Merehbi said, according to The Daily Star.
He added that about 55,000 Syrian refugees had returned since July - a number that contrasts with that announced in November by General Security, which put the number of returnees at almost 90,000 during the same period. He went on to criticize what he called a lack of coordination between General Security and his ministry, according to The Daily Star.
Most of the refugees are from the western Qalamoun region, after the Lebanese security ensured the safe transfer of the refugees from Arsal to the Lebanese-Syrian border.
The Syrian regime set up a coordination committee to repatriate millions of refugees who fled the country's seven-year conflict, the state-run news agency said.
The conflict has displaced more than 5 million Syrians outside the country, the United Nations says, with more than half displaced to Turkey and most of the rest split between Lebanon and Jordan
Thousands of Syrians are unable to return because their homes were destroyed in the fighting, or because they region fear military conscription or retribution from regime forces.
But the tough retractions and mounting arrest campaign by the Lebanese security have pushed hundreds of refugees to move back home as fighting there subsides.
A survey made by Zaman al-Wasl on a random sample of refugees in the camps of Arsal, including 210 refugees, showed that 92% of the refugees had refused to return, while 8% had agreed to return to the towns that they described as safe in the western Qalamoun.
Since the Syrian revolution erupted in 2011, more than 470,000 people have been killed, and more than 6 million people have been displaced.
Zaman Al Wasl
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