Lebanon begins repatriating Syrian refugees despite concerns about their safety

Lebanon is scheduled to start returning Syrian refugees to their country at the end of next week, according to Lebanese President Michel Aoun.

Michel Aoun said that his country will begin at the end of next week to return Syrians to their country in batches, despite concerns about their safety, expressed by human rights groups.

Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees in the world in relation to the population, with an estimated number of more than 6 million, most of whom do not have regular papers, and about 20 percent live in dozens of medium and small camps, and most of them come from opposition areas, such as Homs, Aleppo, Idlib and the southern countryside of Damascus. Al Sharqi, Hama, and Daraa, and their conditions, according to experts, are not conducive to return.

In July, the Lebanese Minister of the Displaced, Issam Sharaf El-Din, announced a plan to return about 15,000 refugees to Syria per month, citing that Syria has become largely safe more than a decade after the outbreak of the war.

The Lebanese government bases its plan to return the Syrians to their country on Lebanon's failure to sign the 1951 International Asylum Agreement and considers that it is not obliged to abide by it. Lebanon grants the Syrians the status of "displaced persons" and not "refugees", as it has not signed the international asylum agreement, while experts stress the legal invalidity of the term "displaced persons", and consider that the authorities invoke the designation to prevent resettlement, while recognition of refugee status does not mean their later settlement.

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