The File of Syrian Refugees Between Mikati and the Refugee Commission

The caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced, following his meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi at the UN headquarters in Geneva, that "our meeting was fruitful and the most important aspect is that the Refugee Commission provided the Lebanese General Security with all the data related to the refugees, and the tables are currently being sorted to clarify the status of each case individually, including those not registered with the commission. I can say that the ideas were closely aligned." He pointed out that "Lebanon has borne the majority of the burden of the refugees for humanitarian reasons, but we cannot continue in this matter at the expense of Lebanon, the Lebanese people, and the Lebanese state, especially as we witness violations of human rights as seen in Gaza." Mikati clarified that "we encourage the commission to shift its support for Syrian refugees towards incentive projects in their country that encourage them to return rather than remain as refugees in Lebanon." For his part, Grandi emphasized "that we appreciate what Lebanon is doing in terms of hosting Syrian refugees and the constructive cooperation between us and the Lebanese government and General Security, which has resulted in delivering the data to the General Security." He confirmed that "there is a refugee problem in more than one country which poses a challenge to the commission because financial support is not what it used to be, and we believe that the optimal solution is to support refugees in Syria, but this will take some time." Grandi announced that they had reached an agreement "with the Syrian side to open a coordination office for the commission at the Lebanese-Syrian border, which will regulate the movement of displacement."