About 1,300 Syrian refugees are scheduled to return to their country from Lebanon Thursday in the latest voluntary trip organized by General Security, a statement from the agency announced Wednesday.
Those who have registered are expected to gather at 6 a.m. in Tripoli’s Maarad area and Shebaa’s Bayader neighborhood, and at Nabatieh’s Kamel Jaber Cultural and Social Center, Sidon’s Municipal Stadium, Burj Hammoud’s Municipal Stadium and the Abboudieh, Masnaa and al-Qaa border crossings.
The trip will be the second one organized by General Security this year; last month, close to 1,000 Syrian refugees made the return to their country in an organized return.
The return comes amid disputes among political parties over the refugee return issue. Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Saleh Gharib traveled to Damascus last week to discuss the issue, sparking a debate among officials over whether the visit had breached the new Cabinet’s policy of dissociation from regional conflicts.
On the one hand, President Michel Aoun and his allies have called for the safe return of the refugees without waiting for a political solution in Syria.
On the other hand, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his Future Movement, along with the Lebanese Forces and the Progressive Socialist Party, have opposed contact with the Syrian regime before a political solution is reached.
In December, General Security head Abbas Ibrahim said that about 110,000 Syrian refugees had returned from Lebanon in 2018, local media reported at the time.
He did not specify how many refugees among the total had returned by themselves or through the trips that General Security has been organizing since the summer in coordination with Syrian authorities.
General Security’s numbers for the number of refugees who have returned have been much higher than other estimates, including those from the United Nations refugee agency and Lebanon’s former minister of state for refugee affairs, both of which place the number in the low tens of thousands.