The Lebanese authorities detained 49 Syrian and Palestinian refugees at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport Saturday morning for allegedly trying to depart the country illegally, using forged documents , National News Agency NNA reported.
NNA said the men and women were trying to an Arab country, which was not identified.
The Internal Security Forces General Directorate warned Arabs and foreigners, especially Syrian and Palestinian refugees, against violating residency laws and attempting to travel with forged documents.
It stressed that it will carry out investigations with the detainees to uncover the members of the counterfeit gang.
The detainees were referred to the state prosecutor’s office .
The number of Syrian and Palestinian refugees fleeing into Lebanon has skyrocketed in the past year . Over one million Syrian refugees have registered with the UN and thousands of Palestinian refugees from Syria have also sought refuge in Lebanon . One in four residents of Lebanon are Syrian refugees and nearly one in eight is a Palestinian refugee .
This prompted Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas to say on Saturday that Lebanon can no longer tolerate the burden of over a million Syrian refugees without sufficient international aid, slamming the international and Arab community for failing to assist in providing the needed aid.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.