(Zaman Al Wasl)- As ‘2019’ knocks Christmas bells, the displacement of Syrian refugees in Lebanon have been continued for the eighth year as if they pay a price for their rebellious stand against the Syrian regime and its security arsenal.
Arsal's border camps are one of the largest in Lebanon where about 80,000 Syrian refugees live in 117 camps near the Lebanese border with Syria.
Lebanese Foreign Minister, Gebran Bassil, expressed his resentment last June, saying the scattred Syrian camps along the border are inappropriate scene.
Racial and inappropriate behavior was first appeared the Lebanese officials, activists say.
In ‘Disclaimer of Liability’ statement, Bassil said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Lebanon was responsible for this shameful situation that the Syrians had reached.
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. Some 37,000 have returned this year, UNHCR figures show.
About 110,000 Syrian refugees have returned from Lebanon to their home country in 2018, Lebanese General Security head Abbas Ibrahim told local media outlets, 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.
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 regime must help resolve, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said.
The harsh living conditions in Lebanon are why some Syrian refugees have begun to go back. In April, research from Beirut’s Carnegie Institute showed daily instances of racism against refugees, with low-income residents, such as those housed in informal settlements, forced to eke out a living in the fields or on construction sites, according to report by Open Imigration Organisation.
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.
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
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