Syrian refugees in Lebanon number more than 1 million

Syrian refugees who fled the violence from the Syrian town of Flita, near Yabroud, pose for a photograph at the border town of Arsal, in the eastern Bekaa Valley March. (File photo: Reuters)
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By Staff writer | Al Arabiya News
Thursday, 3 April 2014

The number of Syrians registered as refugees in Lebanon after fleeing war in their country has surpassed one million, Agence France-Presse reported the U.N. refugee agency as saying on Thursday.

Refugees from Syria now equal a quarter of Lebanon’s resident population, the UNHCR said, describing the figure as “a devastating milestone worsened by rapidly depleting resources and a host community stretched to breaking point.”

Tiny Lebanon has now become the country with “the highest per capita concentration of refugees worldwide,” said the UNHCR, adding that is “struggling to keep pace.”

“The influx of a million refugees would be massive in any country. For Lebanon, a small nation beset by internal difficulties, the impact is staggering,” UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

School-aged refugees eclipse the number of Lebanese children in the country's state schools, the U.N. says, and 2,500 new refugees are registered every day.

“The extent of the human tragedy is not just the recitation of numbers,” Reuters quoted UNHCR representative Ninette Kelley as telling reporters in Tripoli. “Each one of these numbers represents a human life who ... have lost their homes, their family members, their sense of future.”

Syrians have also fled to Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt, and the official total of 2.6 million refugees - which understates the scale of the exodus - means Syrians will soon overtake Afghans as the world’s biggest refugee population.

Many millions more have been displaced inside Syria, and the pace has only accelerated in the last 12 months.

Syria’s three-year civil war has killed more than 150,000 people, a third of them civilians, and caused millions to flee.

Rebels accused of planning gas

In a related story, Syria is charging in a letter to the United Nations that opposition groups are planning a toxic gas attack in a rebel-held area near Damascus so they can then blame it on government security forces, Reuters reported.

In a letter dated March 25 and circulated by the U.N. this week, Syria’s U.N. envoy, Bashar Jaafari, said his government had intercepted communications between “terrorists” that showed a man named Abu Nadir was secretly distributing gas masks in the rebel-held Jobar area.

“The authorities also intercepted another communication between two other terrorists, one of whom is named Abu Jihad,” Reuters quoted Jaafari as saying.

“In that communication, Abu Jihad indicates that toxic gas will be used and asked those who are working with him to supply protective masks.”

Jaafari said in the letter addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. Security Council that this information “confirms that armed terrorist groups are preparing to use toxic gas in Jobar quarter and other areas, in order to accuse the Syrian government of having committed such an act of terrorism.”

A senior Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said of the Syrian intelligence: “I don’t give any credence to that.”

A United Nations inquiry found in December that sarin gas had likely been used in Jobar in August and also in several other locations, including in the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Ghouta, where hundreds of people were killed.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed to destroy his chemical weapons following global outrage over the large-scale sarin gas attack in Ghouta in August.

Meanwhile, Syria to agree to a new timetable to remove its chemical weapons by late April.

In a separate letter to Ban and the Security Council, Syria’s Ja’afari also warned that “armed terrorist groups continue to threaten and carry out terrorist attacks against chemical weapons facilities and the chemical substances.”

The senior Western diplomat said: “I don’t think there’s any evidence that any of the groups have any interest in attacking the convoys ... we don't see that as a major risk.”

(With Reuters and AFP)

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/New...-refugees-in-Lebanon-more-than-1-million.html

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"Thank you Al-Asshead, Russia and Iran, Lebanon said."

God bless our brothers and sisters in beautiful Lebanon.

 

How are they to blame, Imran? For defending themselves against murder and carpet bombing? For not wanting to live under oppression and isolation?

More importantly most of the civilians have and have not had anything to do with the conflict. Why are they to blame?

The reality is that you have an bloodthirsty Ba'athi dictator that is totally disconnected from reality (for instance he still thinks that he is the legitimate "president" and that he has done nothing wrong) and who is willing to do everything to stay in power. That includes using chemical weapons on the civilian population, barrel bombing hundreds of villages and main towns etc. and killing civilians in the thousands indiscriminately and systematically.

I am not saying that the Syrian Opposition has not done crimes. For instance the ISIS retards but unlike Al-Asshead they are not ruling the country or the president of Syria.

Al-Asshaed has been condemned as a war criminal in the Arab League and the UN for a reason.

If he was brought to justice right now while we speak he would be trialled as nothing more than a war criminal.

 

Go to sleep Mullah and worry about issues that are of a concern for you. Such as pleasing the fake wannabe Arab Mullah's that you adore and are a loyal servant of. Issues in the Arab world are none of your concern. The last thing we need are more Shia terrorist and Child-Murderer supporters from abroad.

 

@Cheetah786

Pakistani forum or not your opinion is that of an outsider and an unwanted element as the Shia terrorist supporter that you are.

Another supporter of a Child-Murderer and war criminal is the last thing this thread needs.

Stop derailing the thread.