Lebanon struggles with rising refugee influx

The Cabinet will hold a special session next week to grapple with the increasing flow of refugees coming from strife-torn Syria into Lebanon, as the U.N. Security Council heard Wednesday that Lebanese fighting on both sides of the conflict violated Beirut’s policy of disassociation.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati sounded the alarm over refugees during a Cabinet session he chaired at the Grand Serail Wednesday, saying a new approach was needed to face the influx. He reiterated his call for Arab states and the international community to quickly come up with promised financial assistance to help Lebanon fulfill its obligations toward thousands of Syrians and Palestinians displaced by the ongoing fighting in Syria.

He said Cabinet discussed the “pressure and risks” posed by the flood of Syrian and Palestinian refugees into Lebanon as a result of the 21-month-old bloody conflict in neighboring Syria.

“Agreement was reached to hold a special Cabinet session to discuss this matter ... and take measures that can limit risks and burdens and lead all Arab and international countries to shoulder their responsibilities alongside the Lebanese state in dealing with this issue,” the prime minister said, according to a statement read by Information Minister Walid Daouk.

Daouk said Mikati had called on Cabinet to meet at Baabda Palace next Thursday to discuss the refugee crisis.

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri telephoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to express “his deep condemnation of the bombardment targeting the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Damascus,” according to a statement released by Hariri’s office. “Hariri voiced his solidarity with the Palestinian brothers in their sufferings which have become an indivisible part of the sufferings of the Syrian people in facing the tyrannical regime,” the statement said.

Several thousand Syrian and Palestinian refugees have arrived in Lebanon over the past 48 hours following the bombardment of the Yarmouk camp near Damascus, while over 30 cases of tuberculosis have been discovered among Syrian refugees, raising fears of the spread of diseases among the displaced.

As the number of Syrians fleeing the bloodshed in their country increases, Lebanon faces a growing humanitarian crisis in securing shelter and food and health care for the displaced.