Lebanese Party leader Samir Geagea said on Friday that he sent a message to the UN Secretary-General warning of legal measures to close the UNHCR’s regional office in Lebanon because of the latter’s “non-cooperation” on the issue of Syrian refugees.
Geagea said he handed the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, a letter to UN chief Antonio Guterres.
“Lebanon is suffering from massive crises and problems, most of which is the random and chaotic presence of illegal Syrian refugees”, said Geagea in a statement on Facebook.
Criticizing the UNHCR’s handling of the years-long presence of refugees, he said: “what makes things worse is the UNHCR’s handling of the issue and how it embarks on incorporating the Syrians in the Lebanese fabric instead of finding a third country to naturalize them, or even return them back to their homeland”.
Geagea accused the UNHCR of withholding information about documented Syrians and abstaining from forwarding them to official authorities in Lebanon”, according to the Arab Press Agency.
He accused the agency of “infringing on Lebanon’s sovereignty” by providing Syrian refugees with residency permits and “refugee” IDs.
In his message, Geagea asked Guterres to make the UNHCR stop these practices and to share its data, related to illegal Syrians, with the authorities in Lebanon on a regular basis.
He said the UNHCR must respect the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the Lebanese General Security and the UNHCR in 2003, stipulating that Lebanon is not a country of asylum, but merely a country of transit.
The LF chief concluded by saying that legal measures would be taken if the agency does not abide. UNHCR offices in Beirut could be closed down and its activities suspended, he noted.
Lebanon, which has been mired in a crushing economic crisis since late 2019, says it hosts around two million Syrians, the world's highest number of refugees per capita, with almost 785,000 registered with the United Nations.
