UN envoy meets with Bekaa Valley officials over Syrian refugee crisis

BAALBEK, Lebanon: The U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon and the UNHCR country representative discussed Syrian refugee issues with the Baalbek-Hermel governor Tuesday at Baalbek's Serail.

“The plans of the U.N. will focus all attention on helping Syrian refugees and Lebanese poor hosting refugees,” U.N. Special Coordinator in Lebanon Derek Plubmly said after meeting Governor Bashir Khodor, “and on supporting and helping the relevant Lebanese governmental institutions.”

Plumbly was accompanied by the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon, Ninette Kelly.

Speaking after the meeting, Plumbly said the meeting was concerned with the difficult conditions in which Syrian refugees were living, especially the groups he personally witnessed in the areas of Majdel Anjar and Al-Marj.

He said he would meet with the mayors of those towns to discuss coordination between the U.N. and the municipalities in distributing humanitarian aid.

Plumbly also expressed solidarity with Lebanon, in light of the “border attacks by terrorist members of the Nusra Front group.”

The fundamentalist organization, along with ISIS, clashed with the Lebanese Army in the northeastern town of Arsal last August. The Nusra Front then carried out an attack on a Hezbollah checkpoint near the Lebanese border in the eastern village of Brital’s outskirts earlier this month.

Due to its proximity to Lebanese borders, the battle caught wide attention and raised fears of a possible reoccurrence of clashes inside Lebanese territory.

“The Baalbek-Hermel area is carrying the biggest burden by hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees,” Khodor told reporters after the meeting. “This is why we hope that the biggest support will be provided to this area.”

Plumbly, Kelly and their companions then headed to the office of the Baalbek Municipalities League, where they met with the league’s head, Hussein Awada, over the same topic. The delegation had also visited a social center funded by the UNHCR in Majdal Anjar, where they met with Syrian refugee families attending cultural activities and trainings.

Lebanon hosts at least 1.1 million Syrian refugees, with the largest number residing in the Bekaa Valley. Numerous international organizations and local NGOs have been funding and implementing projects in the area, but the refugees’ living conditions remain poor.