Outgoing Lebanese Minister of Social Affairs Hector Hayar on Monday accused the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) of using Syrian refugees in Lebanon as hostages due to the international narrative that security guarantees for their return are lacking.
«We seem to be facing a general trend of holding displaced people hostage to a specific decision,» he said, adding that sooner or later Syrian refugees will be «a ticking time bomb» for the United Nations, Lebanon 24 news portal reported.
Hayar has called for dialogue and called for the cessation of rumors to allow «those who want to return voluntarily» to do so «safely.» «They are used to living here, like a prisoner who gets used to being imprisoned after ten years and prefers to stay rather than be released,» he said.
«UNHCR does not have the means to come to the aid of all the refugees but neither does it encourage them to return, which leads us to ask ourselves questions of a political nature,» the Lebanese minister explained, as reported by L’Orient le Jour.
In this regard, he explained, in the framework of a plan of the outgoing government of Nayib Mikati, which provides for the repatriation of 15,000 refugees per month, that there will be a third phase after the first and second phases have been completed.
Amnesty International called on the Lebanese authorities in mid-October to halt the process on the grounds that Syrian refugees in Lebanon «are not in a position to make a free and informed decision on their return.»
«By enthusiastically facilitating these returns, the Lebanese authorities are knowingly putting these Syrian refugees at risk of egregious abuses and persecution upon their return to Syria,» highlighted Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Diana Semaan.
Lebanon’s acting Prime Minister, Nayib Mikati, threatened in June to expel Syrian refugees on the grounds that the country «no longer has the capacity to shoulder the burden», amid a deep economic and social crisis that has set off international alarm bells.
The war in Syria has caused some 5.7 million people to flee to other countries in the region, including some 840,000 who have crossed the border into Lebanon, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
However, Lebanese authorities estimate the real figure to be closer to 1.5 million people, in addition to the some 480,000 Palestinian refugees living in the country. The largest concentration of Syrian refugees is in the Bekaa Valley (east), near the Syrian border.
