The Daily Star - Officials happy with aid plan for Syria refugees, February 28, 2012

BEIRUT: Politicians and United Nations officials said Monday that state aid for Syrian refugees in the country is satisfactory.

The officials were speaking after a meeting attended Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Social Affairs Minister Abou Faour, the president of the Higher Relief Committee and a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representative.

Abu Faour said all participants had agreed that the issue of Syrians seeking refuge in Lebanon was purely a humanitarian one.

“It is the duty of the Lebanese authorities to assume the highest degrees of responsibility away from politicization, in a way that gives the refugees full humanitarian assistance,” he said.

The meeting discussed the best ways to help refugees, he said, where the nation’s Higher Relief Council oversees UNHCR’s aid operations.

“The mechanisms adopted so far are good,” he said.

When asked about an estimate of the total number of refugees in Lebanon, Abu Faour quoted the UNHCR’s latest report, saying there were about 7,000 registered refugees.

He noted that a “number of displaced came to Lebanon in recent weeks after events in Syria became very intense.”

Abu Faour and the other politician’s comments contrast with assessments from local activists.

Activists in Tripoli and in the Bekaa area say there are actually around 16,000 Syrians living as refugees in Lebanon with many more coming in on a weekly basis.

They say refugees are afraid to register because parties in the Lebanese government are sympathetic to the Syrian regime, and claim many of the names submitted to the Higher Relief Council don’t reach the UNHCR.

After a meeting with Mikati Monday, U.N. Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said aid work in the country was going well.

“Lebanon’s Higher Relief Council is working closely and effectively with the UNHCR and other U.N. agencies in the provision of assistance,” Amos said in a statement.

Separately Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is expected to announce a plan to fend off the growing threat to Lebanon posed by the unrest in Syria.

Berri “will announce a plan to address the repercussions of the Syria crisis and regional events in Lebanon,” MP Michel Musa of Berri’s parliamentary bloc said Monday.

Musa highlighted efforts that Berri has carried out in this respect, with Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai and Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani.

Also commenting on events in Syria, former President Amin Gemayel told a local newspaper Monday that he backed the Lebanese government’s policy of dissociating itself from developments in neighboring Syria, in an apparent breaking of ranks with his March 14 allies.

Gemayel said, despite having had differences with members of the March 14 coalition, his alliance with the opposition movement was strong and based on key principles that all members shared.

In the interview, the Kataeb (Phalange) Party leader also reiterated that his party supported the “Syrian revolution.”


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