(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Lebanese General Security has extradited 11 Syrian refugees to the regime through the Masnaa border crossing, fellow refugees told Zaman al-Wasl Friday.
Muhammad Abdul Karim, friend of refugee Malek Muhammad Zia, who was among the deported, said that, “Ten days ago, I met Malek, who was looking for a place to stay. So I offered my home while he waited for the regime’s embassy in Lebanon to issue his passport, in order to travel to Dubai to join his father and his fiancée. I accompanied him to the embassy, where he requested an urgent passport and paid $830 in fees instead of the usual $300. They asked him to come back three days later. However, last Thursday morning, he was arrested by Lebanese intelligence checkpoint and handed over to the Lebanese General Security on charges of surreptitious entry.”
Abdul Karim added that, “when someone went to bail Malek out at the General Security, they informed him that Malek was deported along with ten other Syrians at four in the morning, on Thursday, to the Masnaa border crossing by order signed by Director of Lebanese Public Security, Major General Abbas Ibrahim.”
More than 1 million Syrian refugees are registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon, while the Lebanese government estimated the true number of Syrians in the country at 1.5 million.
According to the Lebanese authorities, the number of refugees who had returned to their homeland from Lebanon reached 172,046 by March 19.
The Mediterranean country of around 4.5 million people says it hosts some 1.5 million Syrians, of which nearly a million are UN-registered refugees.
Lebanese politicians routinely blame the country's economic and other woes on Syrian refugees and the government has ratcheted up the pressure to send them back.
Rights groups have decried measures to make the lives of refugees increasingly difficult.
Since June, more than 3,600 Syrian families have seen their shelters demolished in the eastern region of Arsal, according to local authorities.
Homes made of anything other than timber and plastic sheeting are not allowed.
In August, the Lebanese army destroyed a further 350 structures in the north of the country and arrested dozens of people for lacking residency documents, humanitarian groups said.
The labour ministry, meanwhile, is cracking down on foreign workers without a permit, a move activists say largely targets Syrians.
Eight years of war in Syria have killed 560,000 people and driven half the pre-war population of 22 million from their homes, including more than 6 million as refugees to neighboring countries.
Zaman Al Wasl
Zaman Al Wasl
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