Change and Reform: Aid for Refugees Should Not Lead to their Naturalization

The Change and Reform bloc warned on Tuesday of attempts to naturalize Syrian and Palestinian refugees residing in Lebanon, while highlighting the burden they are imposing on the country.

MP Ibrahim Kanaan said after the bloc's weekly meeting: “We remind the international community of its obligations towards providing the refugees with aid, but hope that it will not reach a point that would lead to their naturalization.”

He added that Syrian refugees should only be “accommodated in a manner that would eventually allow them to return to their homeland.”

“The main goal of services granted to them should be their return to Syria,” stated the MP.

There are more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Well over half of them are living in insecure dwellings – up from a third last year. The country has struggled to cope with their burden since the eruption of the Syrian conflict in March 2011.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil had echoed the Change and Reform bloc's warnings in April, noting: “There is a real plan to keep displaced Syrians in Lebanon, which we should confront, as they should not be turned into permanent refugees.”

“The international community is responsible for the suffering of the Syrian children because it failed to resolve their country's crisis,” he noted.

M.T.

Y.R.