Source: http://www.al-monitor.com

Author: Barbara Slavin

Of all the foreign countries affected by the Syrian civil war, none has been impacted more seriously than Lebanon, where the Syrian refugee population is approaching 1 million – nearly a third of the Lebanese population.

In Washington on Tuesday, US, UN and Lebanese officials appealed for more support from regional as well as international donors and urged the US Congress not to let budget battles reduce American assistance of $254 million, currently the largest single contribution to Syrian refugee relief in Lebanon.

Lebanese Ambassador to the US Antoine Chedid, speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, said the refugee issue was “an existential problem for Lebanon” and urged his country’s “cry of pain” to be heard. He said the Syrian influx into Lebanon was equivalent to 100 million refugees suddenly entering the United States and that the World Bank had estimated the cost to the Lebanese economy over the past two years at $7.5 billion. Without more external help, Chedid implied, Lebanon would have to close its borders to Syrians fleeing the carnage in their homeland.

Anne Richard, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, said a third of Syria’s population is now internally displaced or are refugees, who number 2.2 million. More than half of Syrian children no longer attend school, creating a potential “lost generation” that will undermine Syria for years to come even if the war ends soon, she said. Lebanon is hosting more than a third of the refugees, with the remainder in Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.

Rather than build more refugee camps in a country that is still housing tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the Arab-Israeli conflict, Lebanon has let the Syrians find shelter in existing towns and villages. Initially concentrated in the north, the refugees now populate every corner of the country sleeping in tents and unfinished buildings where they cannot find other accommodation.

Ninette Kelley, resident representative in Lebanon of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said there were now more than 800,000 Syrians in more than 1,500 locations in Lebanon, making the task of providing assistance especially complicated. About 14% of the refugees are living in tents and some 40,000 are in flood-prone areas, she said, meaning that they require relocation before winter rains.

The UN agencies and NGOs are fortifying tents, providing primary health care to prevent epidemics and struggling to support the Lebanese government in educating 280,000 Syrian children of school age – nearly the number of Lebanese children currently in primary school.

Click here to read the full article.