Over 800 Syrian refugees return home

Former Hezbollah MP Nawwar Saheli presented General Security head Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim Thursday with a new list of refugees seeking to return to their homes in Syria, according to a statement from the party’s media office.

In Thursday’s meeting, Saheli and Ibrahim also discussed the agency’s efforts to facilitate the returns.

A separate statement released by General Security Thursday morning said that 829 refugees had set off for Syria from multiple locations across Lebanon through the Masnaa and Abouddieh border crossings.

The statement did not specify whether the refugees had registered for return with Hezbollah.

The refugees started gathering in the early morning at assembly points in Akkar, Burj Hammoud, Masnaa, Nabatieh, Shebaa and Tripoli, and at Beirut’s Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium.

In June, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah announced that his party would be directly involved in organizing the voluntary return of Syrian refugees, given its close ties with Damascus.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah had created a committee, headed by Saheli, that would oversee the operation and the party would establish information centers for refugees in connection with its efforts to assist voluntary returns.

Last month, Saheli said he presented Ibrahim with the names of over 1,000 refugees who had signed up with Hezbollah to return to Syria, local media reported.

General Security has been registering Syrian refugees who are willing to return and organizing their transport, as well as serving as an intermediary with Syrian authorities.

Last month, Ibrahim claimed that 50,000 Syrian refugees had returned from Lebanon this year, and said that the number could climb to 200,000 within a year’s time.

However, the number Ibrahim cited is considerably higher than both that reported by the United Nations refugee agency and those mentioned in General Security’s own previous announcements.

Lebanon has been a host country to the refugees since the Syrian crisis erupted in 2011, and officials say there are over 1 million Syrian refugees in the country.