Will EU aid in exchange for curbing refugee flows make it harder for Syrians in Lebanon to overcome hostility?

A man and his family ride on a motorbike through flood waters at an informal tent settlement housing Syrian refugees following winter storms in the area of Delhamiyeh, in the central Bekaa Valley on January 17, 2019. (AFP)
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Updated 28 May 2024
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Will EU aid in exchange for curbing refugee flows make it harder for Syrians in Lebanon to overcome hostility?

  • EU leaders say a new 1 billion euro aid package for Lebanon will ease the economic pressure of hosting displaced Syrian
  • Rights groups say the pledged funding has only emboldened Lebanese authorities to mount a crackdown on Syrians

LONDON: Since the EU announced a €1 billion ($1.087 billion) aid package to assist Syrians in Lebanon, in exchange for Lebanese authorities agreeing to curb the flow of migrants to Europe, hostility toward the Syrian community in Lebanon has, by most accounts, continued to rise.

Earlier this month, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, announced that the EU would allocate a substantial package of aid to crisis-racked Lebanon for the 2024-27 period to help it cope with its substantial refugee population.

Of this amount, €736 million would be allocated to supporting refugees, while €264 million would go toward training the Lebanese armed forces to tackle illegal migration to Europe.

Von der Leyen said the aid would bolster border management, assist reform to the banking sector, and support basic services to the most vulnerable communities, including refugees, amid a crippling economic crisis in Lebanon and a surge in the number of irregular boat arrivals in Cyprus from Lebanon.




The EU recently announced a €1 billion aid package to assist Syrians in Lebanon, in exchange for Lebanese authorities agreeing to curb the flow of migrants to Europe. (AFP)

The announcement came after Cyprus, an EU member state, voiced concern about the number of migrant boats arriving on its shores last month. The majority were Syrians arriving from Lebanon.

This sharp increase in arrivals prompted the Cypriot government in mid-April to suspend the processing of asylum applications from Syrians. Nicosia also called on its EU partners to step up efforts to aid Lebanon.

However, von der Leyen’s announcement appears to have emboldened Lebanese authorities to step up their crackdown on Syrians, human rights monitor Amnesty International said on Monday.

Within a week of the announcement, on May 8, Lebanon’s General Security announced a new clampdown on Syrians, further tightening work and residency restrictions and ramping up raids, evictions, arrests and deportations.

More than 400 refugees were repatriated to Syria on May 14, according to Amnesty International, which, alongside other rights bodies, concluded that “Syria remains unsafe for return, and refugees are at risk of human rights violations.”




Syrian refugees returning from Lebanon to their country through the Al-Zamrani crossing on May 14, 2024. (AFP)

“Once again, President von der Leyen has put her desire to curb the flow of refugees at any cost into Europe before the EU’s obligations to protect refugees fleeing conflict or persecution,” Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.

“This appears to have emboldened Lebanese authorities to intensify their ruthless campaign targeting refugees with hateful discourse, forced deportations, and stifling measures on residency and labor.”

Lebanon is home to about 1.5 million Syrian refugees. Anti-Syrian sentiment in the country has intensified since the onset of the financial crisis in 2019, pushing 80 percent of the Lebanese population below the poverty line.

The hostility and suspicion, stoked by the rhetoric of senior politicians, boiled over in mid-April when a senior Lebanese Forces official was reportedly abducted and killed in a Syrian area near the Lebanese border.

Lebanese mobs indiscriminately attacked Syrians and vandalized their properties, while local authorities and self-appointed community groups evicted many from their homes and businesses.

IN NUMBERS

  • 1/3 of Lebanese citizens in five governorates were living in poverty in 2022.
  • 90% of Syrians in Lebanon were living below the poverty line in 2022.
  • 2,000 Syrians arrived in Cyprus by sea in the first quarter of 2024.

The EU-Lebanon deal augurs poorly for acceptance of displaced Syrian refugees, rights groups say.

Wadih Al-Asmar, president of the Lebanese Center for Human Rights, told Arab News he has never witnessed “this amount of pressure on Syrian refugees in Lebanon, where all the security services are participating.”

He believes the hostility toward Syrians is “purely for electoral reasons” and that von der Leyen has “opened a Pandora’s box in the region, especially in Lebanon.”

Syrian refugees are among the most vulnerable communities in Lebanon, with the majority unable to afford basic essentials and more than half of households living in shelters that are either overcrowded or below minimum standards for habitability, according to UN agencies.




A Syrian child stands barefoot amidst snow in the Syrian refugees camp of Al-Hilal near Baalbek in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley on January 20, 2022. (AFP)

Karam Shaar, a senior fellow at the New Lines Institute, said displaced Syrians in Lebanon “are always in a position where they have to pick between two ugly options: Staying in Lebanon or going back to Syria.

“It’s the balance between the ugliness of these two factors that determines whether they decide to stay in Lebanon or go back to Syria,” he told Arab News.

Until now, the next best option for Syrians was onward travel to a third country — ideally an EU member state. However, since Cyprus stopped processing Syrian refugee applications, options have narrowed further.

“The option to leave Lebanon and go to Europe has also been made much, much harder because it’s much more difficult to go to Greece from Lebanon instead of going to Cyprus, which is much, much closer,” Shaar said.

Cyprus is a mere 185 km from Lebanon — taking about 10 hours to reach by boat. More than 2,000 Syrians arrived by sea in the first quarter of 2024. Whether the new EU funding for Lebanon will reduce those numbers remains to be seen.




Syrian refugees are among the most vulnerable communities in Lebanon, with the majority unable to afford basic essentials. (AFP)

Shaar said the money allocated to support Syrians in Lebanon is “relatively small.” Furthermore, owing to the routine misappropriation of funding by Lebanese authorities, little is likely to reach those most in need.

“If you think of the 3RP (Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan), which is the main UN-sponsored plan for helping Lebanon cope with the Syrian refugee crisis, the sums that Lebanon has been receiving per year are actually higher than the amount that the EU has announced — if you look at the elements relating specifically to Syrians,” he said.

“Unfortunately, in light of aid diversion, which is the case in Lebanon, in Syria — in most corrupt countries to varying extents — little of that amount will actually find its way to Syrians.

“However, I think part of those amounts is urgently needed, especially in the field of education and the support toward the UNHCR.”




Karam Shaar, a senior fellow at the New Lines Institute, said part of the money allocated to support Syrians in Lebanon is “urgently needed, especially in the field of education and the support toward the UNHCR.” (AFP)

Co-led by the UN Refugee Agency and the UN Development Programme, the 3RP provides a platform for humanitarian and development partners to respond to the Syrian crisis at the regional and host country level.

The 3RP estimated in this year’s Regional Strategic Overview report that Lebanon, the country with the highest proportion of refugees in the world relative to its population, will need $2.7 billion in financial aid to meet humanitarian needs in 2024.

Last year, Lebanon received $1.8 billion, representing a mere 31 percent of the required $5.9 billion, according to the same report.

Al-Asmar of the Lebanese Center for Human Rights believes the latest EU aid package will have “more negative than positive effect on Lebanon.”




The UN said Lebanon will need $2.7 billion in financial aid to meet humanitarian needs in 2024. (EU)

On the one hand, he said, the €1 billion “is not new money — this was the support that was planned for the next four years.” It was primarily a “marketing or packaging announcement,” he said.

On the other hand, “this support, instead of being welcomed by Lebanese politicians, was somehow a trigger to initiate one of the biggest hate campaigns against Syrian refugees.”

Rather than shouldering the responsibility for the country’s predicament, including the ongoing financial crisis, Lebanese politicians are instead making scapegoats of the Syrians, he said.

€1 billion for Lebanon over four years means €250 million per year,” which “is nothing,” especially when considering the “number of refugees we have in Lebanon.”




Syrian refugees stand in the balcony of a building under construction which they have been using as shelter in the city of Sidon in southern Lebanon, on March 17, 2020. (AFP)

Pointing out that EU officials have not yet approved the agreement, he said: “We have the feeling that the EU is trying to outsource border management … and pushing the Lebanese government to commit human rights violations that EU countries cannot afford to commit.

“So, whenever there are Syrian people to be pushed back from Cyprus, for example, they will not be pushed back to Syria, which is a crime. They will be pushed back to Lebanon, and then the Lebanese army will commit this international crime, which is a violation of the Convention against Torture, by sending them back to Syria.”

Article 3 of the UN Convention against Torture stipulates that “no state party shall expel, return (“refouler”) or extradite a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”

As a party to the convention, Lebanon has breached its international obligations by summarily deporting thousands, including opposition activists and army defectors, to Syria, according to Human Rights Watch.

Ahead of the 8th Brussels Conference on supporting the future of Syria and the region, held on Monday, humanitarian organizations, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, warned that Syrians are at risk of being forgotten by the international community.

With 16.7 million Syrians requiring humanitarian assistance in 2024, according to UN figures, aid agencies urged donors to increase investment in early recovery to help Syrians rebuild their lives and access basic services.




Human Rights Watch said Lebanon has breached its international obligations by summarily deporting thousands, including opposition activists and army defectors, to Syria. (AFP)

The EU pledged €2.12 billion for 2024-25 to support Syrians at home and in neighboring countries, as well as their host communities in Lebanon, Turkiye, Jordan and Iraq.

In response to the pledge, the aid agency Oxfam said the discussion in Brussels “remains far removed from the harsh realities Syrians face.”

In a statement the agency said: “Funding still fails to match the scale of needs, and year after year, the number of people relying on aid grows, a stark reminder of the eminent collapse in Syria’s humanitarian situation.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned that the Syrian Humanitarian Response Plan for 2024, covering neighboring countries, is only 8.7 percent funded, at $352 million out of the required $4.07 billion.

In neighboring countries, just $371 million, or 7.7 percent, of the $4.49 billion required is covered.

 


Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235

Updated 55 min 17 sec ago
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Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235

  • Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry

GAZA CITY: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 44,235 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,638 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
 

 


Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

Updated 26 November 2024
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Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

  • The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry

THE HAGUE: The world’s chemical watchdog said Monday that it was “seriously concerned” by large gaps in Syria’s declaration about its chemical weapons stockpile, as large quantities of potentially banned warfare agents might be involved.
Syria agreed in 2013 to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, shortly after an alleged chemical gas attack killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus.
“Despite more than a decade of intensive work, the Syrian Arab Republic chemical weapons dossier still cannot be closed,” the watchdog’s director-general Fernando Arias told delegates at the OPCW’s annual meeting.
The Hague-based global watchdog has previously accused President Bashar Assad’s regime of continued attacks on civilians with chemical weapons during the Middle Eastern country’s brutal civil war.
“Since 2014, the (OPCW) Secretariat has reported a total of 26 outstanding issues of which seven have been fulfilled,” in relation to chemical weapon stockpiles in Syria, Arias said.
“The substance of the remaining 19 outstanding issues is of serious concern as it involves large quantities of potentially undeclared or unverified chemical warfare agents and chemical munitions,” he told delegates.
Syria’s OPCW voting rights were suspended in 2021, an unprecedented rebuke, following poison gas attacks on civilians in 2017.
Last year the watchdog blamed Syria for a 2018 chlorine attack that killed 43 people, in a long-awaited report on a case that sparked tensions between Damascus and the West.
Damascus has denied the allegations and insisted it has handed over its stockpiles.
Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011 after the government’s repression of peaceful demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.
The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry.


Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon

Updated 26 November 2024
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Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon

  • The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries

DAMASUS: Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the Lebanese border on Monday, with the defense ministry reporting two civilians injured in the attacks.
Israel’s military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the bridges of Al-Jubaniyeh, Al-Daf, Arjoun, and the Al-Nizariyeh Gate in the Qusayr area,” state television said, with official news agency SANA reporting damage in the attacks.
The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries.
The attacks “injured two civilians and caused material losses,” it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, based in Britain, said the attacks had “killed two Syrians working with Hezbollah and injured five others,” giving a preliminary toll.
Earlier, the monitor with a network of sources in Syria had said the “Israeli strikes targeted” an official land border crossing in the Qusayr area and six bridges on the Orontes River near the border with Lebanon.
Since September, Israel has bombed land crossings between Lebanon and Syria, putting them out of service. It accuses Hezbollah of using the routes, key for people fleeing the war in Lebanon, to transfer weapons from Syria.

 

 


Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case

Updated 26 November 2024
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Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case

  • A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced to prison former senior officials, a businessman and others for involvement in the theft of $2.5 billion in public funds — one of Iraq’s biggest corruption cases.
The three most high-profile individuals sentenced — businessman Nour Zuhair, as well as former prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi and a former adviser, Haitham Al-Juburi — are on the run and were tried in absentia.
The scandal, dubbed the “heist of the century,” has sparked widespread anger in Iraq, which is ravaged by rampant corruption, unemployment and decaying infrastructure after decades of conflict.
A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said.
Thirteen people received sentences on Monday, according to member of Parliament Mostafa Sanad.
Most of them, 10, are from Iraq’s tax authority and include its former director and deputy, he added on his Telegram channel.
Iraq revealed two years ago that at least $2.5 billion was stolen between September 2021 and August 2022 through 247 cheques that were cashed by five companies.
The money was then withdrawn in cash from the accounts of those firms.
A judicial source told AFP that some tax officials charged were in detention, without detailing how many.
Businessman Zuhair was sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to the judiciary statement.
He was arrested at Baghdad airport in October 2022 as he was trying to leave the country, but released on bail a month later after giving back more than $125 million and pledging to return the rest in instalments.
The wealthy businessman was back in the news in August after he reportedly had a car crash in Lebanon, following an interview he gave to an Iraqi news channel.
Juburi, the former prime ministerial adviser, received a three-year prison sentence. He also returned $2.6 million before disappearing, a judicial source told AFP.
Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi, also currently outside Iraq, was sentenced to six years in prison — alongside “a number of officials involved in the crime,” according to the judiciary’s statement.
Corruption is rampant across Iraq’s public institutions, but convictions typically target mid-level officials or minor players and rarely those at the top of the power hierarchy.
 

 


11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor

Updated 26 November 2024
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11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor

  • Seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in the attack and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that control swathes of northeast Syria.

BEIRUT: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Monday 11 people including civilians were killed in attacks by a Kurdish-led force on positions of Turkiye-backed militants in north Syria.
“A woman, her two children and a man were killed... in the bombing of a military position... used by Ankara-backed factions for human smuggling operations to Turkiye,” the Britain-based monitor said.
It said seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in that incident and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that control swathes of northeast Syria.
SDF special forces infiltrated a Turkiye-backed group’s military position and killed three militants, said the monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
The SDF also booby-trapped a military position as they withdrew, in an attack that killed another four pro-Turkiye militants but also four civilians including a woman and her two children, the Observatory said.
On Sunday, 15 Ankara-backed Syrian militants were killed after the SDF infiltrated their territory, the monitor reported earlier.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkish troops and allied armed factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.