Fire engulfs Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon as plight grows

BEIRUT — A massive fire broke out at a Syrian refugee camp in northern Lebanon on Friday in the latest tragedy to hit refugees who already face a growing crackdown in the country.

The blaze quickly spread throughout the camp amid an extreme heatwave. Several tents burned down, but no human casualties were reported.

The Lebanese Civil Defense quickly arrived at the scene and managed to extinguish the flames. A Civil Defense official told the US-funded, Arabic-language Al-Hurra news site that the fire was likely caused by an electrical short circuit and quickly engulfed the camp due to the high temperatures.

On Thursday, firefighters put out a blaze at another refugee camp in Sidon in the south. The Civil Defense said in a tweet that a number of people were injured and moved to a nearby hospital.

Lebanon is currently enduring a heatwave with unusually high temperatures reaching 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas. Syrian refugees in Lebanon, who already live in difficult conditions and face growing anti-Syrian sentiment, are more vulnerable to the repercussions of the extreme heat. Millions who live in informal camps across the country do not have access to clean water and cooling systems.

Adding to their woes, Syrians also face a deportation campaign coupled with growing discrimination and abuse by the local population.

Lebanon, a small country of a little more than 5 million people, hosts more than 2 million Syrians, according to local polling center Statistics Lebanon, making it the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita.

Politicians and officials have repeatedly called on the international community to facilitate their return to safe areas in Syria. Many in Lebanon blame the presence of Syrians for the debilitating economic crisis in the country.

The Internal Security Forces (ISF) on Thursday announced the arrest of seven Syrian and Lebanese nationals who are members of a human smuggling network. According to an ISF statement, the individuals were arrested on the Aabdeh-Mahmra road in the north as they were driving five vans carrying 79 Syrians who entered the country illegally — 13 of whom were planning to go to Europe via sea.

Hundreds of Syrians in the country have been arbitrarily arrested while security forces have carried out dozens of raids in several camps in the past months. Many others were forcibly deported to their homeland where they face torture and other forms of persecution at the hands of the Syrian regime, rights organizations have warned.

In a report issued earlier this month, Human Rights Watch said the Lebanese army forcibly deported thousands of Syrians, including unaccompanied children, back to Syria between April and May 2023.

“Accounts of torture of returnees and their forced military conscription into a bloody war that has killed and displaced hundreds of thousands show that Syria is not safe for returns,” HRW quoted its Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss as saying in the report.

Last week, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on Lebanon to refrain from forcibly deporting Syrian refugees, citing their vulnerability.

“Conditions are not met for the voluntary, dignified return of refugees in conflict-prone areas in Syria,” one of the articles in the resolution read.

The European move sparked outrage in Lebanon, with many politicians considering the resolution to encourage Syrians to remain in the country.

Lebanese Minister of the Displaced Issam Charafeddine and Economy and Trade Minister Amin Salam condemned the decision as “unfair” and a blatant interference in the country’s internal affairs, according to the official National News Agency.

For his part, Charafeddine said in a statement that the European Parliament decision is “arbitrary and unacceptable.”