Refugees in Lebanon facing UN aid cuts

The United Nations said that refugees residing in Lebanon would be facing aid cuts, reports the Associated Press (AP), November 2.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) spokeswoman Lisa Abou Khaled noted that as a result of significant reductions in funding, the UN agency as well as the World Food Program would give 88,000 fewer families cash aid next year than in 2023.

Despite this, she stressed that 190,000 refugee families would still be given aid which is expected to be capped to around $125 monthly.

Lebanon is home to nearly 2 million refugees of which 1.5 million of them come from neighbouring Syria.

Syrians see Lebanon as the nearest safe country as many have been forced to flee because of the ongoing civil war that erupted due to strongman Bashar Al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations back in 2011.

READ: Lebanon: Interior Minister hits out at Syrian refugees

Just over 200,000 Palestinians refugees now also reside in the country due to Palestine’s people, particularly those in Gaza, having faced relentless persecution by Israel which has worsened since October 7.

Although Lebanon has a strong community of Syrian refugees, the past year saw Lebanon’s army deporting hundreds of Syrians, many of whom had been staying in the country for years.

At the beginning of last month, Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi made unsavoury remarks regarding Syrians.

He controversially said that the refugee problem had become “unbearable” as well as adding that Syrians were a threat to the nation’s demographics and identity.