Live Breaking News & Updates on About Lebanon|Page 3
Stay updated with breaking news from About lebanon. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Syrians, have swamped lebanon s schools and hospitals, and brutal invasions by syria and israel have done it immense damage. this is the famous corniche. when i was in beirut recently, i was shocked by the number of beggars on the streets people who ve been forced out of their homes in syria by the civil war there. now, perhaps unsurprisingly, a backlash against the refugees is growing in lebanon. i spoke to carine torbey, the bbc s beirut correspondent. there is absolutely no end in sight for this crisis. lebanon is already overwhelmed with its own problems, which are massive. this is a country with a very delicate demographic balance. so this is all coming together to make the lebanese, for the first time, say, enough is enough. is it important that these refugees, a million and a half of them, are from syria, ....
And, of course, the population of cyprus has swelled quite considerably, hasn t it, as a result of refugees going there? in the last year, uh, and according to the ministry of interior in cyprus, the number of, you know, illegal immigrants who left from lebanon to cyprus has increased 27 fold. cyprus said, i can t take any more. and what they did, they came to lebanon to tell lebanon that, you have to help us crack down on this movement of illegal immigrants, and they might, you know, discover that the only way to do this is probably to work together, rather than each one blaming the other. and of course, the eu came and gave lebanon. ..what was it, about a billion euros or something, which a lot of people thought was rather a bribe to them to try to keep all those refugees in the country. ....
Absolutely, this has backfired and backfired tremendously against the prime minister. he was accused of, you know, playing the european game of, you know, just take some money and keep the refugees in lebanon, be the kind of, you know, the coastguard of europe, and it has only contributed to fuel the tension. lebanon is such a fragile country. do you yourself think that lebanon can survive all this? when you speak to the refugees, you feel there are so many stories that are extremely heartbreaking, and you just wonder, why can t it be that they re just staying here? they re living here, they re not hurting anyone, why can t theyjust, you know. they re just people seeking normal life. and then you just hear all the insecurities of the lebanese, when it comes ....
A country which has, of course, dominated lebanon from time to time, and there s been a lot of bad blood between them? the syrian army was in lebanon up until 2005, when they withdrew, and some of the lebanese consider that lebanon was under syrian occupation, while others think that syria is a friend and was here to help lebanon. but also, to be fair to the situation, a lot of lebanese have very strong bonds to syrians as well. the people who feel, you know, the most cold in this situation are the refugees themselves, because from their perspective, they don t want to go to syria, they don t want to go back. either they can t go back, because they are from areas that are completely destroyed, or they don t feel they belong. some of them tell me, i don t even know the country that syria has become now. they know also that lebanon doesn t feel welcoming any more, and they feel that, i mean, ideally, they will want to go to europe, to the states, to any, you know, third country. ....
And, of course, the population of cyprus has swelled quite considerably, hasn t it, as a result of refugees going there? in the last year, uh, and according to the ministry of interior in cyprus, the number of, you know, illegal immigrants who left from lebanon to cyprus has increased 27 fold. cyprus said, i can t take any more. and what they did, they came to lebanon to tell lebanon that, you have to help us crack down on this movement of illegal immigrants, and they might, you know, discover that the only way to do this is probably to work together, rather than each one blaming the other. and of course, the eu came and gave lebanon. ..what was it, about a billion euros or something, which a lot of people thought was rather a bribe to them to try to keep all those refugees in the country. absolutely, this has backfired and backfired tremendously against the prime minister. ....