SYRIAN REFUGEE DEPORTATIONS FROM LEBANON DENOUNCED BY RIGHTS GROUPS

Sun 14 May 2023:

On Thursday, a group of 20 Lebanese and international groups condemned recent deportations of Syrian refugees from Lebanon to their war-torn home country.

“The Lebanese Armed Forces have recently and summarily deported hundreds of Syrians back to Syria, where they are at risk of persecution or torture,” stated the groups, which included Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

They added in a signed joint statement that since the beginning of April, the Lebanese army has been carrying out “discriminatory raids” on the houses of Syrian refugees across Lebanon, and then immediately deporting most of them.

The organizations have accused Lebanese authorities of blaming the country’s economic crisis on the presence of Syrian refugees, who since 2011 have been fleeing their war-torn homeland to neighboring Lebanon.

According to information obtained from aid organizations, around 1,100 Syrians have been arrested since the beginning of this year, of whom more than 600 people have been deported to Syria.

Some of those deported were arrested by Syrian officials upon arrival at the border and have since vanished, according to refugee organizations.

Anti-Syrian sentiment has recently grown in Lebanon, with many Lebanese officials saying Syria is now safe and that Syrians should be repatriated.

According to the UNHCR, at least 1.5 million Syrians live in Lebanon, although only roughly 800,000 of them are formally registered with the agency.

Syria’s civil conflict has killed at least 350,000 people and displaced 13 million more, some of whom have fled to neighboring countries such as Lebanon and Turkey.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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