Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: A Crisis with Many Heads

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Posted on Aug 01 2017 0 minutes read
Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: A Crisis with Many Heads
There is nothing more difficult than dealing with the Syrian crisis and its social, living, economic, security and political repercussions on the neighboring country of Lebanon. When one talks about the presence of more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees on Lebanese soil, he is torn between two contradictory factors. The first is the burden placed by this number of refugees on a country whose resident citizens are under four million.

The second factor is the humanitarian aspect of those poor people forced to flee their homes for all those years as a result of the war in Syria, with most of them living in conditions that could not be farther from decent and humane living standards.

No one can understand the condition of refugees, displacement and migration better than the Lebanese, who had suffered from the civil war for long years. But at the same time the repercussions of the Syrian refugee crisis on the lives and living conditions of the Lebanese cannot be overlooked, as the war drags on with no end in sight, and in light of the international failure to help Lebanon deal with this mounting crisis.

Beyond the figures and statistics, it is no longer a secret that the Syrian refugee crisis is becoming exacerbated, which is a sign of more intractable problems to come. At the beginning of July, the Lebanese government addressed this issue with much attention, but political disaccord about solutions prevented taking the right decision on this problem, although everybody agrees on the return of the refugees to their homeland, and without an alternative solution on the horizon.

It is also no secret that the Lebanese are feeling the weight of this displacement. This feeling in some takes on an inhumane character, which is justified by those who harbor it by the deterioration of services and job competition, as Syrian labor is offered at low prices, in addition to some security problems resulting from the infiltration of armed militants of refugee camps and the marked increase in crime in Lebanon in recent times.

In conclusion, there are no ready-made solutions for this crisis to provide a final and radical conclusion, unless the Syrian crisis finds a lasting solution. Its impact, nevertheless, can be mitigated. But this would require international, Lebanese and Syrian coordination to find gauges and safe havens in Syria that would prompt a part of Syrian refugees to return to their country in safe conditions. It is futile to look for other solutions, such as the one put forward by some regarding the organization of Syrian presence in Lebanon. The Lebanese State, with its modest resources and political conditions, is incapable of organizing the affairs of its own citizens appropriately. It is delusional to expect it to organize the affairs of others on Lebanese soil. 

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