Today, Monday, Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati threatened to return the Syrian refugees if the international community did not cooperate with his country to secure their return to Syria.
Lebanon - immersed in its worst economic crisis and unable to provide basic services to its citizens, including electricity and fuel - is home to 1.5 million Syrian refugees, according to official estimates, or nearly a third of the country's population.
Mikati said - during the launch of the "Lebanon Crisis Response Plan for 2022-2023" - that "11 years after the start of the Syrian crisis, Lebanon no longer has the ability to bear all this burden, especially under the current circumstances."
He added, "I call on the international community to cooperate with Lebanon to return the displaced Syrians to their country, otherwise Lebanon will have a position that is not desirable for Western countries, which is to work to get the Syrians out of Lebanon by legal means, through the firm application of Lebanese laws."
Last May, Minister of Social Affairs Hector Hajjar made similar statements in which he confirmed that Lebanon was unable to host such a large number of Syrian refugees, despite its commitment to the principle of non-refoulement.
He believed that "the state is committed to the principle of non-refoulement of the displaced, but the situation is no longer bearable and the Lebanese state is no longer able to bear the cost of maintaining security in the camps for the displaced and the areas in which they are dispersed."
1/4 Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the international community to cooperate with Lebanon to return the displaced Syrians to their country. Otherwise, Lebanon will have a position that is not desirable for Western countries, which is to work to get the Syrians out of Lebanon by legal means, by firmly implementing Lebanese laws...# Council of Ministers pic.twitter.com/eHyqYxxQ5y
— Presidency of the Council of Ministers 🇱🇧 (@grandserail) June 20, 2022
Today, Monday, Lebanon demanded $3.2 billion to address the repercussions of Syrian asylum on its soil, according to a statement by the United Nations.
For its part, the organization said that it had provided $9 billion in aid within the framework of the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan since 2015, but Lebanon's successive crises plunged large segments of the Lebanese into extreme poverty, and with it exacerbated public dissatisfaction with the continued presence of Syrian refugees.
Lebanon - which defaulted in 2020 for the first time in its history to pay its foreign debts - is suffering from a dwindling dollar reserve;
This made the authorities unable to provide the most basic of basic services such as fuel, electricity and medical care, due to the deterioration of state utilities services.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations have warned against the forcible return of Syrian refugees, pointing out that they have documented cases of arrest and torture by the Syrian authorities against returnees.