NGOs sound alarm after plan to demolish a series of camps
About 15,000 Syrian refugee children in Lebanon are at risk of losing shelter after Lebanese authorities issued a demolition order for a series of informal refugee camps, according to three international humanitarian organisations working in the country.
Lebanon has a population of less than four million people, and since 2011 more than a million Syrians have fled there to escape the civil war in their country.
Lebanese authorities complain of the difficulty in supporting what has been described as an unbearable social and economic weight. Lebanon never signed the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention, and in 2011 it allowed Syrian refugees to enter the country as "temporary guests", defining the camps as "informal places".
According to Save The Children, World Vision, and Terres des Hommes, three of the numerous international NGOs with projects in Lebanon to support the community of Syrian refugees, 15,000 refugee children will be without shelter June 9 when the Lebanese Army carries out the demolition order on a series of camps in the Arsal region, in the Beqaa Valley near the Syrian border.
From 2014 to 2017 in the area, there was fighting against the presence of armed Syrian and Lebanese jihadist and al-Qaeda groups.
The civilians in the area have suffered multiple deportations and forced transfers.
The three organisations said Lebanese authorities plan to demolish about 5,000 refugee settlements and to destroy sanitary and sewage structures, schools, and medical dispensaries built over the years, putting at risk not only the education of 15,000 minors but also their health and that of their parents.
SOURCE: ANSAmed
