The Bireh Municipality in Akkar District, Lebanon, announced that it has downsized the number of Syrian families taking refuge in the town.
In a statement published by Mohammad Wahbi the Head of the Municipality, on his “Facebook” page on Sunday, February 3, he said that the municipality decided to take action concerning the situation of Syrian refugees, given the stability that Syria has been lately witnessing with the military operations going low key.
The number of Syrian families is to be reduced gradually within the area covered by the municipality, as to ease pressure on infrastructure, water, electricity, sewage system, the collection and treatment of waste materials.
The municipality also refused any inquiries about the issue, especially on the part of international organizations and politicians, calling them to release the pressure imposed on Lebanon instead of encouraging the Syrian refugees’ stay.
The statement also pointed out that the Bireh Municipality has the readiness to keep Syrians for additional two or three years, allowing them to return gradually to Syrian under the auspice of the Lebanese General Directorate of General Security and the government of the Syrian regime.
The municipality has also made a generalization to mayors and sheiks of the necessity to inform Syrian refugees of the accommodations offered by the General Directorate of General Security as to return to their areas in Syria, Homs, rural Homs, al-Qusayr and its rural parts in particular.
This statement is the first to be issued by Lebanese municipalities independently, while the demand on sending the Syrian refugees in Lebanon back to the “safe” areas in Syria keeps rising.
The Lebanese government speaks of over 1.5 million Syrian refugees, who are consisting a pressure on its economy and resources, while the UN’s official statistics stress that the number does not exceed a million.
The Lebanese government, formed last Friday, after a governmental gap of eight months, declared that it excluded the Syrian refugees from its 2019 budget, calling the international organizations and donors to offer the needed aid to Syrian people.