LEBANON (ACN News): The United Nations Refugee Agency released figures at the end of February indicating 305,000 Syrian refugees have registered in Lebanon or are seeking registration there, but a Church representative estimates the actual figure is much higher.
Maronite Father Simon Faddoul, who is Caritas Lebanon president, is convinced of this.
Speaking recently in Beirut to the international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need he said: “Every day about 1000 refugees cross the uncontrollable border into Lebanon.
“The number of Syrian refugees in the country therefore probably totals more than 500,000. Certainly not fewer.”
But, Fr Faddoul said, they were not numbers, but people who had often suffered a cruel fate.
“About 55,000 of them are being look-ed after by us, Christians and Mus-lims in equal measure,” he said.
“We started this work immediately after the beginning of the crisis in March 2011.”
Fr Faddoul said that, on top of the total number of refugees, there were about 300,000 Syrian guest workers who were already in Lebanon before the outbreak of hostilities in Syria.
They were therefore not eligible for UN registration as refugees.
In many cases they had brought their families subsequently from Syria.
Fr Faddoul does not see an end to the conflict and hence to the flow of refugees in the foreseeable future.
He is especially anxious about what the future will bring.
“There are already over four million refugees within Syria who had to flee to secure areas in the country before the fighting started,” he said.
“When the battle for Damascus begins then everyone from the city of 2.5 million will come to us.
“Lebanon is only half an hour by car from the Syrian capital. And just consider the fact that we are only a population of four million.”
Because of the numbers involved Caritas is already over-stretched financially.
“We can’t cut back on the programs we have set up for the poor of Lebanon,” Fr Faddoul said.
“That would be unjust. But beyond that we hardly have any resources.”
The Caritas president therefore thanked the donors of Aid to the Church in Need expressly for their support.
“What is quite crucial is the aid the Christian village of Rableh near the Lebanese border is receiving,” he said.
“Its original population of roughly 12,000 inhabitants have been pinned down there since July 2012.
“The benefactors of Aid to the Church in Need help us to provide food and medicines to the people there, for example, for babies.
“Every week a truck load travels to Rableh, which is the object of fighting between government and rebel troops.”
