Deported Lebanese arrive at Beirut Airport

BEIRUT: A number of Lebanese citizens who were recently expelled from the United Arab Emirates arrived to Beirut’s airport late Saturday night, with more expected throughout the day Sunday.

A flight departing from the Emirate of Abu Dhabi arrived in Beirut at 11 p.m. Saturday and carried an unidentified number of Lebanese citizens who were kicked out of the UAE, sources at Beirut’s Airport told The Daily Star.

The arrival comes two day after roughly 70 Lebanese citizens were notified by the Lebanese embassies in UAE of the decision to deport them with their families.

Most of the Lebanese facing deportations are Shiites.

Three flights coming to Beirut from the UAE are scheduled to arrive Sunday, with sources expecting a number of deportees to be on board.

Those flying in from Dubai will arrive at either 3 p.m. or midnight, while those flying in from Abu Dhabi are set to arrive at 11 pm.

The sources said that the majority of deportees were flying in from Abu Dhabi and not Dubai.

The decision to deport the Lebanese is the third such move by a Gulf nation in the past six years.

In 2009, dozens of Lebanese Shiites who had lived in the UAE for years were expelled on suspicion of links with Hezbollah.

In 2013, Qatar also expelled 18 Lebanese citizens, after the Gulf Cooperation Council imposed sanctions against Hezbollah for its military intervention in the Syrian war.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, has been at odds with the Gulf states, particularly over the 4-year-old crisis in Syria.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Tammam Salam raised the matter with his Emirati counterpart, Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum, on the sidelines of an economic conference in Egypt Saturday.

According to a statement released by Salam’s office, Maktoum stressed that the “UAE has neither a policy nor an intention to target Lebanese residents.”

“Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid clarified that if measures were taken against some Lebanese, they were certainly based on particular security concerns and do not exceed this limit,” it added.