Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told the European Union at the opening of the 7th conference on Syrian refugees in Brussels Thursday that the prolonged presence of more than 1.5 million refugees in Lebanon is having detrimental effects on the country’s economy and social fabric.
Bou Habib has explicitly accused the international community of focusing on assistance to the refugees while ignoring Lebanon’s repeated calls for securing their return home.
Lebanon remains the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita, with the government estimating that 1.5 million Syrian refugees are present, while unofficial figures estimated them at over 2 million.
