BEIRUT: Syrian refugees in Lebanon are falling deeper into debt, with 2018 being the worst year yet, as more families marry off children to cope financially, according to a report by the United Nations released on Wednesday.
The study by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN children’s fund (UNICEF) stated that the average household debt has increased in the last three years from $800 in 2016 to more than $1,000 in 2018.
The Syrian conflict that erupted in 2011 has generated 5.6 million refugees in the Middle East, with Lebanon hosting more than 950,000 registered refugees, according to UNHCR.
With families struggling to afford food, rent and medicine, child marriage is also on the rise.
Twenty-nine percent of Syrian girls aged between 15 and 19 are married in Lebanon, a number that has been growing, according to the report.
“These findings are a reminder to all of us that the situation for children is becoming more delicate,” said Tanya Chapuizat, UNICEF Representative.
“We are seeing refugee families resorting to behaviors that put their children at increasing harmful risks,” she stated in the report.
Around 69 percent of Syrian refugee families in Lebanon are living below the poverty line and nearly eight out of 10 Syrian kids aged 3 to 5 and 15 to 17 are not in school.
Many children are forced to work, cannot afford transportation or lack the supplies they need to go to school.
The proportion of Syrian child refugees working in Lebanon has risen to 7 percent from 4 percent in late 2016, according to research by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC).
Shelter conditions have also worsened among Syrian households, and 34 percent now live in non-residential or non-permanent structures, an increase from 26 percent in 2017 according to the report.
“The study is a poignant reminder of the daily hurdles refugees have to go through just in order to survive,” UNHCR Representative in Lebanon Mireille Girard said in the report.
Struggling to survive, Syrian refugees in Lebanon fall deeper into debt
Struggling to survive, Syrian refugees in Lebanon fall deeper into debt
- The Syrian conflict that erupted in 2011 has generated 5.6 million refugees in the Middle East
- Around 69 percent of Syrian refugee families in Lebanon are living below the poverty line
Vessel struck off Oman’s Muscat, UKMTO says
DUBAI: A vessel was struck on Sunday by an unknown projectile 50 nautical miles north of Oman’s capital, Muscat, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said.
The attack resulted in a fire in the vessel’s engine room that has been brought under control, UKMTO added.
It is the second incident the agency reports on Sunday after reporting an incident off Oman’s Kumzar in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian state television said Sunday that an oil tanker was sinking after it was struck while attempting to pass through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
The incident took place as Iran exchanged strikes with the United States and Israel, who launched an attack Saturday that killed the Islamic republic’s supreme leader.
“The fate of the offending oil tanker that was struck while attempting to illegally pass through the Strait of Hormuz is that it is now sinking,” state TV reported, without elaborating.
It carried footage showing heavy black smoke emanating from the burning tanker at sea.
The strait carries a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil and a fifth of all liquified natural gas.
On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had warned that the vital waterway was unsafe due to US and Israeli attacks and was therefore closed to ships.
