The Lebanese Ministry of Social Affairs rejected a request submitted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) demanding that Syrian refugees be given the financial assistance they are owed in dollars instead of Lebanese pounds.
The ministry also rejected another request by the UNHCR that the amount be in Lebanese pounds, on the condition that it be raised to the limits of 15 million LP ($136), after the amount was two million and 500,000 for the family ($22.7) and one million and 100,000 per person ($10).
Lebanese press sources revealed the ministry's denunciation of the Commission's request, saying: "Instead of the Commission pushing for the return of the displaced to their country, and at the very least dropping the displacement status of about 500,000 registered as displaced, according to figures issued by the Lebanese General Security Directorate.
The sources also noted that these displaced people move between Lebanon and Syria every month, which means that their displacement is economic, and there are no security reasons that prevent their return. If it is assumed that it will become 15 million, it exceeds the salary of a Lebanese employee in the public sector in the first degree, and like the salary of a minister, which does not exceed 8,500,000 pounds.
The Governor of Baalbek Hermel, Bashir Khader, chaired a security meeting in the border town of Arsal, in which he accused the High Commissioner for Syrian Refugees of not providing the Lebanese state with data and statistics on the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
He said, "I learned that between 20 and 30 displaced families are arrested daily in the vicinity of the town of Arsal, coming from Syria into Lebanese territory."
Kheder added, "Those we are able to apprehend, and I do not know if there are new cases of displacement that are not being caught," noting that despite the legal measures that are being taken against these families, the matter of repatriating them to Syria is not an easy matter, as it is a complex process and in most cases not possible.
The governor of Baalbek-Hermel stressed the need to put in place what he called "preemptive security" to control the entry of those newly arrived families from Syria, adding: "Our situation is no longer tolerable."
According to the statistics revealed by the former Director General of the General Directorate of the Lebanese General Security, Maj. Gen Abbas Ibrahim, there are approximately two million and 80 thousand Syrians, including refugees, whose numbers the UNHCR estimates are approximately 930,000 refugees living under stifling living and economic conditions.
Reporting by Abdul-Hafiz al-Houlani
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