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Lebanese President Slams Int’l Community for Failing to Meet Obligations on Syrian Refugees

Lebanese President Slams Int’l Community for Failing to Meet Obligations on Syrian Refugees
folder_openLebanon access_time3 years ago
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By Sputnik

The international community has not fulfilled its commitments to help Lebanon tackle the Syrian refugee crisis, which cost the country almost $30 billion, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said.

"The cost of the Syrian refugee crisis overwhelms the country’s ability to address it. The international community has turned a deaf ear [to Lebanon’s calls to resolve the issue], and did not pay any attention to its consequences that might affect our country. … If it had fulfilled its obligations, we would not have reached that awful state of affairs," Aoun said.

He noted that the global community continues to put pressure on Lebanon to bear the crisis’ burden even though the country has been facing a deteriorating economic situation.

"We have recently come to an unprecedented economic and financial crisis in our history. One of the main reasons for it is that Lebanon has incurred costs totaling almost $30 billion as a result of the presence of over 1.5 million of Syrian refugees on our soil, according to the International Monetary Fund," Aoun noted.

According to the Lebanese president, the ongoing crisis in Lebanon has been exacerbated by the spread of the coronavirus disease, and the government must now adopt financial reforms to help both Syrians and the country’s citizens who lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic.

In early April, Aoun said that Lebanon had already spent around $25 billion on handling the influx of migrants and refugees, calling on the global community to provide financial support.

Lebanon has long been suffering from an acute economic crisis, with its national currency plunging against the US dollar and causing prices of bread and other necessities to soar. This prompted nationwide protests in October that unseated the previous government. No particular relief followed as the COVID-19 outbreak added to economic woes by putting businesses on hold and people out of jobs.

On Thursday, the Lebanese authorities endorsed an economic plan to put the country back on track toward "real reforms" and tackle the worsening financial crisis accompanied by nationwide anti-government protests that the country has been facing since October.

Aoun said he believes that the return of Syrian refugees home from Lebanon depended on an international decision rather than on his possible visit to Damascus, adding that Beirut had been in contact with Moscow on the refugees’ issue in hope that this partnership would alter a viewpoint of the global community on the matter.

"We are convinced that the return of [Syrian] refugees to their country is related to an international decision, and it does not depend on my possible visit to Syria. The global community acts out of malice in regard to this issue. It wants to keep [the refugees] in countries neighboring Syria, even if the crisis leads to a social, security and economic collapse [there], like in Lebanon, and does not to want to share the refugee burden with these countries despite the enormous potential of Europe and the United States," Aoun said.

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