Lebanese army raids refugee camps for Syrians, arrests 43
DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – Lebanese authorities arrested 43 Syrians who they said entered the country illegally and stayed without identification papers. This came during a raid carried out in camps for Syrians.
The Lebanese Army said in a statement that one of their units with assistance from an intelligence patrol raided in the past few days several camps for Syrian refugees in the Biqaa region.
They arrested 43 Syrians for entering Lebanon illegally and staying there without identification papers, according to the statement.
This came prior a scheduled visit by an official Lebanese delegation to Damascus to discuss the situation on the Syrian-Lebanese border, which witnessed increasing illegal influx of refugees in the past months.
The delegation consists of the Lebanese Minster of Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Abdallah Bou Habib, and representatives of the Army and security forces.
The delegation will presumably lay a joint work plan with Syrian party to prevent Syrian refugees from illegally entering into Lebanese territories. Recently, thousands of Syrians crossed to Lebanon, which raised concerns in the neighboring country.
According to the security authorities of Lebanon 8,000 Syrians have been arrested during August alone. Since early 2023, illegal refugees surpassed 20,000.
According to official estimates, the number of Syrian refugees residing in Lebanon is about 1.5 million, while the number registered with the UNHCR is approximately 880,000, and they go through severe and substandard conditions.
Similarly Turkish authorities have launched deportation campaigns against Syrian refugees residing in Turkey, especially in Istanbul, since July.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan previously told reporters that the number of the Syrian refugees who have “voluntarily returned” has exceeded one million and will increase in the future.
However, according to sources from Tel Abyad, Bab al-Hawa, and Bab al-Salama – three Syrian border crossings under the Turkish occupation – the number of the Syrian deportees mounted 6,600 since the beginning of September.
The deportation process takes place after the confiscation of all personal identification documents of the deportees by the Turkish authorities. They obtain their fingerprints and iris scans and force them to sign voluntary return papers.