Human Rights Watch reveals Lebanon is evicting thousands of Syria refugees
Lebanon is using force to evict at least 3,664 Syrian refugees from their homes and expelled them from the municipalities, at thirteen at this time, due to their nationality and/or religion. Human Rights Watch said in a report that another 42,000 refugees remain at risk of eviction.
The 57-page report, “‘Our Homes Are Not for Strangers’: Mass Evictions of Syrian Refugees by Lebanese Municipalities,” documents inconsistencies in the reasons for booting out the refugees.
Syrian refugees in Hungary
photo/ Mstyslav Chernov – Wikimedia Commons
United Nations officials identified 3,664 such evictions from 2016 through the first quarter of 2018.
While Lebanese municipal authorities have claimed that the evictions were based on housing regulation infractions, Human Rights Watch found the measures taken by these municipalities have been directed exclusively at Syrian nationals, and not Lebanese citizens or other foreign nationals.
“Municipalities have no legitimate justification for forcibly evicting Syrian refugees if it amounts to nationality-based or religious discrimination,” said Bill Frelick, refugee rights director at Human Rights Watch and the report’s author.
“Any eviction of a Syrian refugee, as with anyone else, should be on an individual basis for transparent, lawful, and proportionate reasons following proper procedures.”
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees released figures on April 13 estimating that about 13,700 Syrians had been evicted in 2017, but those figures include not only these 3,664 more recent evictions.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Social Affairs also reported to Human Rights Watch that 7,524 Syrians were evicted from the vicinity of the Rayak air base in 2017 and another 15,126 still have pending eviction orders.
Lebanon hosts 1 million registered Syrian refugees, the highest per capita number of any country. These municipal evictions are occurring as politicians and others are increasingly calling for refugees to return to Syria.
photo/ Hassan T.
