Le ministre sortant des déplacés en charge du dossier des réfugiés syriens, Issam Sharaffedine, a accusé le premier ministre Najib Mikati de ne pas souhaiter la rapatriement des réfugiés syriens, en raison de pressions.
Ces propos ont été tenus alors qu’une réunion consacrée à la question avait eu lieu hier au Grand Sérail. Elle avait été marquée par l’absence d’Issam Sharaffedine mais également d’Hector Hajjar, le ministre en charge des affaires sociales.
Sur les ondes d’une radio libanaise, Issam Sharaffeddine a accusé le premier ministre libanais de répondre ainsi favorablement aux “pays donateurs, même aux dépens des Libanais” en raison de ses nombreuses entreprises basées dans certains pays occidentaux.
Le différend ne concernerait pas seulement la question seule des réfugiés syriens mais d’autres dossiers, confirme Issam Sharaffedine, un proche de l’ancien député Talal Arslan alors que Najib Mikati tente de l’écarter de son prochain gouvernement.
La semaine dernière, Issam Sharaffeddine s’était rendu en Syrie pour y rencontrer le ministre syrien de l’administration locale, Hussein Makhlouf afin d’obtenir la rapatriement de 15 réfugiés syriens présents au Liban par mois.
Focus
Lebanon ranks 2nd among the countries that host the most Syrian refugees in proportion to the local population, (High Commissioner for Refugees entitled Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2019). The country of cedars also has a large community of Palestinian refugees whose presence was at the origin of the civil war from 1975 to 1990.
According to the High Commissioner for Refugees, Lebanon had 916,156 Syrian refugees on its soil at the end of 2019, compared to 949,666 a year earlier. 910,600 refugees are believed to be of Syrian origin.
As a reminder, a report prepared by the Ministry of Finance and the United Nations Development Program in 2020 on the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on the Lebanese economy between 2011 and 2018 estimated the cost of the presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, impacting all sectors, including education and electricity, but also causing a fall in the Gross Domestic Product while Lebanon was impacted by a serious economic crisis that emerged in broad daylight in 2019 and characterized by a rapid deterioration of the parity between the Lebanese pound and the dollar. Thus, the national currency lost more than 90% of its value against the greenback. 82% of the Lebanese population would now live below the poverty line and 36% in a state of extreme poverty, leading to tensions with Syrian refugees.
However, some political parties have so far refused to discuss the return of Syrian refugees by refusing to discuss the necessary procedures with Damascus, even if the Lebanese authorities have endorsed a plan to promote this return in 2020.
Faced with the deterioration of social and economic conditions, some Syrian but also Palestinian refugees and even Lebanese nationals are trying to exodus to Europe, in particular via boat people bound for Cyprus. Several boats have been intercepted in recent months.
