(Zaman Al Wasl)- Some 110,000 Syrian refugees have returned from Lebanon to their home country in 2018, Lebanese General Security head Abbas Ibrahim told local news channel MTV Friday, The Daily Star reported.
Such a number contracts with statement delivered by the Lebanese Caretaker Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Mouin Merehbi in November who said only 55,000 Syrian refugees had returned since July.
Syrian activists have voiced concern about the fate of the Syrian refugees returning from Lebanon after Merehbi's statements who assured that 20 Syrian refugees who had returned from Lebanon to Syria had been killed by regime forces.
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
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.
Thousands of Syrians are unable to return because their homes were destroyed in the fighting, or because they fear military conscription.
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.
Up to 250,000 Syrian refugees could return to their devastated homeland in 2019, while many others face problems with documentation and property that the Damascus government must help resolve, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said Tuesday.
Some 5.6 million Syrian refugees remain in neighboring countries – Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq – Amin Awad, UNHCR director for the Middle East and North Africa, told a news briefing. Some 37,000 have returned this year, UNHCR figures show.
Since the Syrian revolution erupted in 2011, more than 560,000 people have been killed, and more than 6 million people have been displaced.
Zaman Al Wasl
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.