BEIRUT: Lebanon faces the threat of political and economic collapse as the number of refugees pouring in from Syria is set to exceed a third of the population, Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said yesterday.
Derbas said the total was expected to hit 1.5 million by the end of the year, an excessive burden for a country of just four million people.
He said the influx of refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war will have cost Lebanon’s already fragile economy around $7.5bn between 2012 and 2014. Border communities hosting Syrian refugees were under particular pressure because of the increase in people willing to work for low wages.
“Unemployment doubled, especially among unspecialised or unskilled labour in those mostly poor areas,” he said, warning that the refugee crisis “threatens to take us to an economic, political and even security collapse.”
Lebanon now hosts around 1.1 million registered Syrian refugees.
“We know that we are working towards having more than 1.5 million registered refugees by the end of 2014, which amounts to more than a third of the local population,” Derbas told a meeting of Lebanese ministers and international aid groups.
According to the United Nations, Lebanon has taken in 38 percent of all Syrian refugees in the region, more than any other country.
“We all have our limits and we have gone beyond those limits now,” Derbas said.
REUTERS
