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 The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR marked what it called a
devastating milestone by formally registering a 18-year-old student
from the city of Homs as the millionth refugee at a ceremony in
Lebanon's Mediterranean city of Tripoli.
After three years of conflict sparked by protests against President
Bashar al-Assad's autocratic rule, Syria's war has caused one of the
greatest upheavals seen in the Middle East — and one which shows no
sign of abating.
With a population of just 4 million, Lebanon now has the highest per
capita concentration of refugees worldwide, an influx which the
government has described as an existential threat in a country
scarred by its own volatile history.
School-aged refugees eclipse the number of Lebanese children in the
country's state schools, the UN says, and 2,500 new refugees are
registered every day.
"The extent of the human tragedy is not just the recitation of
numbers," UNHCR representative Ninette Kelley told reporters in
Tripoli. "Each one of these numbers represents a human life who ...
have lost their homes, their family members, their sense of future."
Syrians have also fled to Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt, and the
official total of 2.6 million refugees — which understates the scale
of the exodus — means Syrians will soon overtake Afghans as the
world's biggest refugee population.
Many millions more have been displaced inside Syria, and the pace
has only accelerated in the last 12 months.
In April 2013, two years after the Syrian crisis erupted, there were
356,000 refugees in Lebanon. That number has nearly tripled in the
last 12 months.
"The influx of a million refugees would be massive in any country.
For Lebanon, a small nation beset by internal difficulties, the
impact is staggering," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio
Guterres said in a statement.
BLOODSHED AND LACK OF FUNDS
Alongside the wave of refugees spilling over from Syria have come
outbreaks of violence in Lebanon, where sectarian divisions reflect
those of its larger neighbor.
Bombings and rocket attacks from the capital of Beirut to the Bekaa
Valley and deadly street fights in Tripoli between Sunni Muslims who
mainly support Syria's rebels and Alawites who back Assad have all
shaken Lebanon's stability.
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The bloodshed has contributed to a sharp fall in economic growth
just as the refugee arrivals have put extra demand on services such
as power, water, education and health facilities. The World Bank
says Lebanon's small economy is losing $900 million a year as a
direct result of the crisis.
A regional appeal for $1.7 billion in 2014 to help the refugees is
only 14-percent funded, forcing UNHCR and other aid agencies to
focus help on only the most pressing cases.
The human cost of that funding shortfall was highlighted in March
when refugee Mariam al-Khawli, who fled Syria with her husband and
four children two years ago, set herself on fire in frustration at
living for six months without the food and cash lifeline provided by
the United Nations.
Khawli's family relied on the aid because her husband has a lung
abscess and cannot work and three of her children have blood
conditions. Her doctor said Khawli now has 70 percent burns and will
need months of treatment if she survives.
The United Nations says the need to support Lebanon is growing more
urgent, not only for humanitarian reasons but because the security
of the Middle East is at stake.
"International support to government institutions and local
communities is at a level that, although slowly increasing, is
totally out of proportion with what is needed," Guterres said.
"Support to Lebanon ... is also badly needed to stop the further
erosion of peace and security in this fragile society, and indeed
the whole region."
(Writing by Dominic Evans; editing by Louise Ireland)
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