Salam Says Syrian Refugees 'Won't be Forcibly Deported'

Prime Minister Tammam Salam stressed Tuesday that the Syrian refugees in Lebanon will not be “forcibly deported,” a day after he urged the U.N. to devise a plan for the “safe return” of refugees to their country and for the redistribution of some of them to other countries.

“We cannot invent appropriate circumstances and we cannot forcibly deport them – neither to Syria nor to any other country,” Salam told an LBCI TV reporter who asked whether Syrian refugees will stay in Lebanon for decades to come under the argument of “awaiting the appropriate circumstances.”

“Shall we throw them into the sea for example? We can press to secure a safe return for them and this is what we are doing,” the premier added.

Addressing the first-ever U.N. summit on refugees in New York on Monday, Salam had warned that the “huge and sudden influx of refugees is posing dangerous risks to our stability, security, economy and public services.”

“Lebanon risks collapsing if the international community does not exert major efforts in this regard,” Salam added, addressing U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.

Five years into the Syria conflict, Lebanon hosts more than one million refugees from the war-torn country, according to the United Nations.

More than a third live in the Bekaa valley near the Syrian border.