Uproar in Iqlim al-Kharroub over Plans to Build Syrian Refugee Camp

Alleged plans to set up a Syrian refugee camp at an Iqlim al-Kharroub town have trigerred a popular outcry in the area, amid a pledge by the Progressive Socialist Party to block the purported project.

Speaking at a meeting for municipal chiefs, mayors and residents at Iqlim al-Kharroub's Jmailiyeh, the town's mayor Nicolas Dagher strongly condemned “the attempt to build a Syrian refugee camp in the outskirts of our town, which overlook the towns of Alman and Rmeileh.”

“The region's towns have welcomed Syrian refugees and offered them shelter, but their numbers have exceeded those of the towns' residents,” Dagher explained.

For his part, Alman municipal chief Farid Ghanem stressed the municipality’s “complete rejection of this project” and mentioned what he described as the reasons behind this refusal.

“Jmailiyeh is a small town whose residents were displaced in the last civil war,” Ghanem said, adding that “similar to other Christian towns in Iqlim al-Kharroub, some of its residents and political figures are exerting arduous endeavors to convince those who had left to return.”

Meanwhile, PSP's official in the region Jamal Saad underlined party leader MP Walid Jumblat's rejection of “the project and of this idea.”

“We, as a party, are against the creation of any camp in the region. We had assisted our Syrian brothers and are still doing so; we are with the Syrian revolution and with the rights of the Syrian people, but not at the expense of our people, residents and land,” said Saad.

“If they want to set up camps, let them be created in a safe zone on the Lebanese-Syrian border,” he added.

The official emphasized that the PSP will not allow the execution of such a project in the region “whatever the considerations might be.”

“Today's meeting is a warning and the start of action against this project,” Saad cautioned.

“We will not remain silent and we will escalate the situation through sit-ins and the blocking of roads,” he warned, urging the country's top officials to “interfere and prevent the creation of such camps.”

On April 3, the U.N. refugee agency said more than a million people fleeing Syria's war have registered as refugees in Lebanon, with many now living in dire conditions. The agency says that every day it registers 2,500 new refugees in Lebanon -- more than one person a minute.

On the same day, the opposition Syrian National Coalition demanded an end to “racist practices” against Syria's refugees in Lebanon.

The SNC lauded a solidarity campaign against racism launched by Lebanese activists on social media websites to “highlight the difficult conditions Syrian refugees are going through in Lebanon.”

The statement was referring to a popular campaign launched as a response to a press conference by former telecommunications minister Nicolas Sehnaoui and Free Patriotic Movement official Ziad Abs, during which the two men called for protecting citizens in Ashrafieh, after an increase in the number of refugees.

The two FPM officials had also called for closing the border with Syria “because Lebanon can not bear receiving more refugees.”

Y.R.