Lebanon deported thousands of Syrians, including unaccompanied children, without respect for due process between April and May 2023, Human Rights Watch said.
It added that the deportation generally targeted Syrians without legal status, and their number reached 1800,<>, according to humanitarian sources. She said the deportation violated Lebanese law and Lebanon's international human rights obligations.
The organization noted that the Lebanese army said it was implementing the decision of the Higher Defense Council to deport Syrians who entered Lebanon irregularly after April 2019.
Syrians live in Lebanon in constant fear of being arrested and returned to appalling conditions, regardless of their refugee status.
She added that Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees per capita amid a severe economic crisis, "but this is not an excuse to catch Syrians and throw them behind the border to fall into the grip of their arbitrary government."
It called on the Lebanese authorities to enable Syrians to regularize their situation in Lebanon.
Donor governments supporting the LAF should urge Lebanese authorities to halt such deportations and ensure that the funds they provide do not contribute to or perpetuate rights abuses, she said.
The organization says that although there are no official general statistics on the number of arrests or deportations, a humanitarian source said that since April 2023, there have been more than 100 raids, 2200,1800 arrests, and 2023,<> deportations of Syrian refugees. Humanitarian workers said the <> wave of deportations was the most dangerous.
She asserted that in all documented deportation cases, the Lebanese army did not give deportees the opportunity to object to their deportation. When deportees told the army they were registered as refugees with UNHCR and feared being returned to Syria, their pleas were ignored.
Human Rights Watch considered that the summary deportation of Syrians by the Lebanese army clearly violates Lebanese law, which requires deportations to be carried out through a judicial authority or, in exceptional cases, by a decision of the Director General of General Security based on an assessment of individual circumstances.
UNHCR, the UN agency tasked with providing international protection and humanitarian assistance to refugees, maintains that Syria is unsafe and will not facilitate mass returns in the absence of basic protection conditions.
The Lebanese army denied the arbitrary or systematic deportation of Syrians, but stressed that the deportations are carried out as part of security operations, based on "confirmed security threats."