Labor Minister Sejaan Azzi highlighted the difficulties Lebanon is facing in coping with refugees from the war in neighboring Syria, calling on the international community to provide more support.
“Arab and foreign states should respect their commitments, not towards Lebanon in particular but towards displaced Syrians in Lebanon,” Azzi said Thursday at the 103rd Session of the International Labor Conference in Geneva.
“How can a country with a surface area no larger than 10,452 square kilometers, no more than 3,752,000 citizens, and a population density of no less than 400 people in one kilometer… open itself today to almost 1.6 million displaced Syrians forced to flee by a destructive war?”
“The Lebanese entity, state, and society cannot absorb this human displacement… Lebanon’s infrastructure, economy, [public] finances, geographical area, sectarian balance and security situation are incapable of carrying out that humanitarian duty.”
On Wednesday, World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim told journalists at a press conference in Amman that International support for Lebanon and Jordan in meeting refugee needs was disappointing.
Earlier in the week Kim estimated the crisis has cost Lebanon $7.5 billion. The country currently hosts well over a million Syrian refugees according to United Nations estimates.
