Lebanese minister lobbies for Syrian refugee camps

BEIRUT (The Daily Star): Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas Saturday further lobbied for his proposal to establish refugee camps for Syrians, saying Kuwait was ready to fund the camps that would better organize the overwhelming presence of refugees in the country.

“The proposal I made to the Cabinet about organizing the presence of refugees [via camps] was rejected ... but they will have to accept it later because the alternative to organization is chaos,” Derbas told a local radio station.

“Refugee camps are ready and I sent a team from the ministry that surveyed the land and units that were established,” he said.

Derbas’ proposal is still under discussion in Cabinet after the minister proposed the camps earlier this month. Initial reports said the camps would be set up past General Security checkpoints, in the no-man’s-land along the border with Syria.

Lebanon is struggling to cope with the presence of some 1.2 million Syrian refugees scattered across the country but mainly concentrated in the Bekaa Valley. Aside from lack of resources and funds to help the refugees, the presence of so many unaccounted for Syrians has been a major cause for security concerns.

On Friday, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said his ministry was ready to establish the camps even if no consensus was reached in Prime Minister Tammam Salam’s Cabinet on the matter.

Derbas said Kuwait was willing to fund the project, noting that he would pay the Gulf country a visit in October to further discuss the issue.

“The emir of Kuwait expressed his readiness to fund the establishment of the camps and that was relayed to us during meetings with head of the Kuwaiti parliament and the emir's adviser in Lebanon.”

Derbas also said that fears of naturalizing refugees and security concerns were addressed in his proposal.

“We can provide security monitoring by deploying security forces and hiring security companies, why can Jordan organize refugee camps with every camp comprising of 180,000 refugees and Lebanon cannot?”