Lebanon may need camps for flood of Syrian refugees: U.N
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | February 9, 2013 20:40
Lebanon should consider setting up transit centers to absorb the waves of refugees fleeing neighboring Syria and may have to establish formal refugee camps if the influx continues, a United Nations refugee official said.
The tiny and fragile Mediterranean state already hosts 260,000 refugees – equivalent to 6.5 percent of its population – and has sought to absorb them in homes and communities, fearing large camps of Sunni Muslim Syrians could inflame sectarian tensions still smouldering from its own 1975-1990 civil war.
But the accelerating exodus from Syria’s bloodshed means that the number of Syrians seeking help in Lebanon is growing by 3,000 a day, leaving authorities and the UNHCR refugee agency struggling to provide for them.
“We have advised the government that it may be a time to start having at least two transit sites,” she said, where refugees could be offered temporary food and shelter before other accommodation is found. “As a start, that would be a good thing.”
UNHCR has also made contingency plans to establish formal refugee camps if the mass influx continues, though that would have to be with Lebanese government permission, she said.
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