BEIRUT: Around 3,000 refugees in Lebanon are expected to go back to Syria in the coming week, a local official said on Thursday, a week after Lebanon said it was working with Damascus for the return of thousands of refugees who want to return.
The refugees living in a border town in northeast Lebanon will travel around 20 km (12 miles) over mountains that have separated them from their homes in Syria’s western Qalamoun region for years.
Bassel Hujeiri, mayor of Arsal town, told Reuters by phone the refugees had asked to go back to Syria.
As the Syrian army backed by Iran and Russia has recovered more territory, Lebanon’s president and other politicians have called for refugees to go back to “secure areas” before a deal to end the war. This is at odds with the international view that it is not yet safe.
Lebanon hosts around 1 million registered Syrian refugees according to the United Nations, or roughly a quarter of the population, who have fled the war since 2011. The government puts the number at 1.5 million and says their presence has strained public services and suppressed economic growth.
Hujeiri said the return would likely happen before the Eid Al-Fitr holiday, which this year will fall around June 14. Eid Al-Fitr marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and depends on the sighting of the moon.
Last Thursday, the head of Lebanon’s General Security agency Major General Abbas Ibrahim told reporters that Lebanon is working with Damascus for the return of thousands of refugees who want to go back to Syria.
On Wednesday Lebanese President Michel Aoun asked a European Parliament delegation to persuade European nations to help with returning refugees in Lebanon to Syria.
The UN’s refugee agency UNHCR told Reuters it was not involved in this transfer, but has spoken to some of the refugees as part of its global policy of making sure people who want to return home have the documentation needed to re-establish themselves and access services.
In April, several hundred refugees were bussed back to Syria from the Shebaa area of southern Lebanon in an operation overseen by General Security in coordination with Damascus.
3,000 refugees to return to Syria from Lebanon soon
3,000 refugees to return to Syria from Lebanon soon
- Around 3,000 refugees in Lebanon are expected to go back to Syria in the coming week.
- The refugees living in a border town in northeast Lebanon will travel around 20 km (12 miles) over mountains that have separated them from their homes in Syria.
Aidarous Al-Zubaidi: Fugitive at large
- Yemen appoints committee to probe allegations against former STC leader after the group’s collapse and his reported flight from the country
- Preliminary findings accuse Al-Zubaidi of exploiting public office for personal gain, fueling political division and instability in south
LONDON: A special committee formed on presidential authority by Yemen’s public prosecutor’s office has made a series of findings against Maj. Gen. Aidarous Al-Zubaidi, the sacked vice-president of the country’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC).
Al-Zubaidi, who is accused of high treason and other crimes against the state, is currently on the run.
Arab News has seen a copy of preliminary findings by the committee which reveal that Al-Zubaidi is accused of abuses of power including corruption, land grabbing and oil trading for personal gain.
On Jan. 7, the PLC issued a decree revoking Al-Zubaidi’s membership of the PLC and accusing him of high treason and other serious crimes, including forming an armed gang, killing military officers and soldiers, and undermining the country’s sovereignty.
At the same time it authorized the public prosecutor’s office to form a special committee to investigate allegations against Al-Zubaidi, empowering it to summon and arrest individuals, gather evidence and take necessary actions according to the law, with a mandate to complete the investigation quickly and to provide periodic reports to the PLC.
The committee’s preliminary findings identify a series of serious allegations against Al-Zubaidi, who is said to be responsible for multiple abuses “which have contributed to creating a state of political and popular division in the southern governorates.”
Al-Zubaidi is the leader of the Southern Transitional Council (STC). On Jan. 7, Al-Zubaidi was due to attend talks in Riyadh with a 50-member delegation from the STC, but at the last minute, he fled instead.
The committee’s findings include allegations that Al-Zubaidi is alleged to have seized large plots of land, including in the Aden Free Zone, on Al-Ummal Island, in Bir Fadl and the Ras Omran area.
The committee has also uncovered allegations that pressure was exerted on the Yemen Petroleum Company and its director, Tareq Al-Walidi, to prevent the import of fuel except through a company affiliated with Al-Zubaidi’s brother-in-law, Jihad Al-Shoudhabi, and the Minister of Transport, Abdul Salam Humaid.
For nearly two years, it is claimed, Al-Shoudhabi has been the sole supplier, earning large profits that have gone to Al-Zubaidi’s treasury.
The report also identifies commercial companies owned by Al-Shoudhabi and, “behind him,” it is claimed, Al-Zubaidi. Two are named in the report: Alahlia Exchange & Transfers Company and Arabian Furniture Center, one of Yemen’s largest furniture companies. Both are headquartered in Aden.
All these and other “deeply regrettable acts of seizure, plunder, and financial and administrative corruption,” the committee says, “have had serious repercussions in southern circles and were a direct cause of southern division and the emergence of many grievances.”
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said there was reliable intelligence indicating that on the night of Jan. 7, Al-Zubaidi had departed from Aden on a ship bound for Somaliland — probably the port of Berbera, 260 kilometers south across the Gulf of Aden.
From there he is believed to have been flown on a cargo aircraft to Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, via Mogadishu, the coastal capital of Somalia, a flight of about 2,600 km.
Some of the crimes of which Al-Zubaidi is accused relate to the largescale military offensive launched by STC forces across southern Yemen in December.
“We know that the Southern Transitional Council worked to storm the eastern cities militarily,” a source close to the Yemeni government told Arab News.
“The pattern and scale of grave human-rights violations and acts of security and military escalation witnessed by the eastern cities in the south of the homeland — Hadhramout, Al-Mahra and Shabwah — as a result of the military incursion by the forces of the Transitional Council during the monitoring period extending from Dec. 3, are considered heinous crimes against the Yemeni people.”
According to the Yemeni Ministry of Legal Affairs and Human Rights, a total of 2,358 individual offences have been identified, including cases of extrajudicial killing and physical injuries, arbitrary arrests and captivity, enforced disappearance and displacement, and the destruction and looting of public and private property.
Backed by Saudi airstrikes, in the first week of January, the Yemeni government quickly regained the captured territories, Al-Zubaidi was sacked from the PLC and charged with treason, and the UAE announced it would withdraw its remaining troops from the country.
Following Al-Zubaidi’s disappearance on the eve of the planned talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has accused the UAE of helping to smuggle the wanted man out of the country.
The same source told Arab News there is evidence that Al-Zubaidi “was receiving YER 10 billion ($42 million) monthly … deducted from the aid that Yemen was receiving.
“While Al-Zubaidi was receiving those funds, Yemeni citizens had not been receiving their lawful salaries for years, including the diplomatic corps.”
Last Thursday, Mohammed Al-Jaber, the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, announced that the Kingdom would assume responsibility for the salaries of Yemeni state employees, including military personnel, giving $90 million to cover salaries for two months.
On Friday evening, Al-Zubaidi, his whereabouts still unconfirmed, made his first public statement since his disappearance 10 days ago.
“We will no longer accept any solutions that diminish our rights or impose an unacceptable reality upon us,” he wrote in a social media post that left no doubt about his determination to undermine the internationally recognized government of Yemen.
He added: “I pledge to you ... that we will continue together until we achieve the desired national goal.
“With your determination, we will prevail. With your unity, the South will be protected, and with your will, the future state will be established.”
