1,000 Syrian Refugees to Return Home: Lebanese Official
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Lebanese General Security announced it will secure a voluntary return trip Monday for around 1,000 Syrian refugees from various regions in the Arab country.
The returnees are set to gather at 6 a.m. Monday at meeting points in Tripoli, Akkar, Nabatieh, Sidon, Tyre, Shabaa, Burj Hammoud, Arsal and Beirut, before passing through the Masnaa, Abboudieh and Al-Zamarani border crossings, General Security said in a statement Saturday, the Daily Star reported.
General Security head Abbas Ibrahim said Friday that around 110,000 Syrian refugees have returned from Lebanon in 2018.
He did not specify how many refugees among the total had returned on their own or through the voluntary trips General Security has been organizing since the summer in coordination with Syrian authorities.
In November, General Security said that 87,670 Syrian refugees had returned since July and that 7,670 had done so through the trips organized by the agency. In September, Ibrahim put the total number of returnees at 50,000.
General Security’s numbers have been much higher than other estimates, including those from the United Nations refugee agency and Lebanon’s caretaker minister of state for refugee affairs, in the low tens of thousands.
