Bassil Says FPM to Seek Ban on Syrian Refugee Encampments, Shops
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil announced Sunday that the FPM will seek to bar Syrian refugees from setting up encampments and opening shops in towns that witnessed FPM victories in the latest municipal elections.
“The presence of Syrian gatherings and encampments will be prohibited in our towns,” said Bassil at an FPM municipal conference.
“FPM-controlled municipalities will bar Syrian refugees from opening shops,” he added.
More than 1,000 unofficial refugee encampments are scattered across Lebanon, mostly in the Bekaa and the North.
Several FPM and Kataeb Party ministers have warned that the huge number of refugees in Lebanon has started to pose major security, economic and demographic risks. They have also warned of alleged international efforts to naturalize or permanently settle the Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
Five years into the Syria conflict, Lebanon hosts more than one million refugees from the war-torn country, according to the United Nations. At least two thirds of them live in extreme poverty, the U.N. says.
Y.R.
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