Beirut, 26 October 2022 - During the past eleven years in Lebanon, Syrian refugees have placed their highest hopes on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as the “guardian” of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, it is considered as a global organization dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people. Syrian refugees had registered their asylum applications in accordance with the established procedures, but hundreds thousands of asylum applications remained pending under vague and baseless names for many years.
Furthermore, it is the Responsibility for determining the status of asylum claims lies with UNHCR, when a country is not a party to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and / or when a country does not have a fair and effective national asylum procedure. Lebanon is not a party to the 1951 Convention.
In 2019, the situation of Syrian refugees took a further rapid deterioration at all levels, affected by the social, economic and health crises that afflicted the country. The situation has reached that almost all Syrian refugees are now unable to bear the costs of a living life of health, food, electricity, water, education, wastewater management and life-saving protection services. The United Nations agencies had revealed in assessing the vulnerabilities of Syrian refugees for the year 2021, about a deplorable situation, as 90% of them live in extreme poverty.
In the midst of the worst economic crisis the country has witnessed in decades, which led to the devaluation of the lira, and the high rate of inflation, which led to the rise in the prices of food and other essentials, thousands of Syrian refugee children remain sleeping in an empty stomach, and many of them do not receive the health care they need, and they are at risk of dropping out as a result of being sent to work under often dangerous conditions. Many Syrian refugees are also forced to accept low-paid or high-risk work opportunities, overtime work, or debt in order to support their families. About 60% of them live in at-risk, substandard or overcrowded housing, with an increase in rents for all types of housing, and an increase in the likelihood of eviction.
While Syrian refugees struggle to stave off the risk of hunger, was and still the response of UNHCR, which has received international support and effort, has been minimal and below what is required to meet the needs of Syrian refugees displaced by the conflict, which is now in its eleventh year. Contrary to what the UNHCR portrays on various means of communication and media, that the aid is life-saving and ensures a comfortable life for refugees, for example: families benefiting from the cash assistance program receive an amount of one million L.L per month, while the devaluation of the country's currency has reached to 39,000 L.L for 1 US dollar.
otherwise; We commend the success of the UNHCR management team in Lebanon in protecting the right of its employees to receive their full salaries, while failing to protect the right of Syrian refugees to receive cash assistance as it arrives from donors, and as it is included in UNHCR financial reports, which are usually in US dollars. In addition, degrading traditional/manual inspection methods that degrade the human dignity of the Syrian person are applied, under the pretext of security measures when they enter the UNHCR office. And also a delay in booking appointments to benefit from the services of the UNHCR, for example: a delay in granting the residence certificate, according to which the legal residence is renewed.
During the past year, we, a group of Syrian youth affected by the refugee crisis, working under the name of the Syrian Hope Forum, initiated several emails carrying the demands of Syrian refugees to the UNHCR team in Lebanon. We also asked the UNHCR representative in Lebanon, Mr. Ayaki Ito, to hold a meeting, but without receiving any response. a year ago.
In the context of this deterioration of the humanitarian situation, it may push some to take steps that endanger their lives, such as illegal immigration. During the past weeks, some Syrian refugees staged a protest in front of the UNHCR office in Lebanon, to denounce the treatment and the limited humanitarian aid, as well as the failure to respond to their demands and marginalization.
Syrian refugees today are in dire need of attention and support, therefore; We call on the humanitarian community to show solidarity with the Syrian refugees at all levels. We hold the UNHCR management team in Lebanon responsible for protecting the lives, rights and freedoms of Syrian refugees, and their right to express their opinion through the various available means. We call on the UNHCR management team in Lebanon to engage the Syrian refugees in a transparent dialogue, listen to their concerns, and respond to their demands, as a matter urgently; Otherwise, we will announce our loss of confidence in the UNHCR management team in Lebanon, through the various means available.
- The Statement is based on reports issued by UN agencies, NGO’s and the media, as well as refugee experiences.
