BEIRUT (AP) — The European Union on Thursday announced an aid package for Lebanon worth 1 billion euros — about $1.06 billion — much of which will go toward strengthening border controls to stem the flow of Asylum seekers and migrants from small, crisis-hit areas are stopping from crossing the Mediterranean to Cyprus and Italy.
The agreement follows other recent EU deals that provide countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Mauritania with funds to fortify their borders. This comes against the backdrop of increasing hostility towards Syrian refugees in Lebanon and a sharp increase in irregular migration of Syrian refugees from Lebanon to Cyprus.
European Union President Ursula von der Leyen announced the aid, to be distributed between this year and 2027, during a visit to Beirut along with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.
The bulk of the package – 736 million euros – would go to supporting Syrian refugees “and other vulnerable groups” in Lebanon, while 200 million euros would support the Lebanese security services in enforcing border and migration control, according to the Cypriot government.
An unspecified amount of aid will go to Lebanese fishermen to stop them selling their boats to smugglers.
Von der Leyen said the EU would also “work in close cooperation with the UN refugee agency UNHCR on a more structured approach to voluntary return to Syria” and called for more international support for humanitarian and rapid recovery projects in Syria.
Europe will continue to maintain “legal pathways” for refugee resettlement in Europe, she said.
Lebanon’s acting Prime Minister Najib Mikati praised the aid package, saying: “Lebanon’s security is security for European countries and vice versa.”
“Any explosion related to the issue of displaced people will not be limited to Lebanon but will spread to Europe and become a regional and international crisis,” he said.
Lebanon, mired in a severe financial crisis since 2019, hosts nearly 785,000 registered Syrian refugees and hundreds of thousands more who are unregistered, the highest per capita refugee population in the world.
Lebanese politicians have been calling for years for the international community to either resettle the refugees to other countries or help return them to Syria – voluntarily or not. Lebanese security forces have increased deportations of Syrians over the past year.
Tensions over the presence of refugees have continued to rise since an official from the Christian nationalist Lebanese Armed Forces party, Pascal Suleiman, was killed last month in what military officials said was a botched car theft by a Syrian gang. The incident led to outbreaks of anti-Syrian violence by vigilante groups.
Meanwhile, Cypriot authorities complain that their country is being overwhelmed by a wave of irregular migration of Syrian asylum seekers, many of whom arrive by boat from Lebanon.
UNHCR’s Lebanon office said it verified 59 “actual or attempted” departures of boats carrying a total of 3,191 passengers from Lebanon between January and mid-April, compared to three documented boat movements carrying 54 passengers in the same period last year.
Typically, few boats attempt the crossing in winter, when the crossing becomes more dangerous. In total, UNHCR recorded 65 boat departures with 3,927 passengers throughout 2023.
Cyprus is adopting increasingly aggressive tactics to stop the flow of migrants. Last month, processing of Syrian asylum applications was suspended and human rights groups accused the Cyprus coast guard of forcibly pushing back five boats carrying about 500 asylum seekers from Lebanon. Cypriot officials have denied this.
Christodoulides welcomed Thursday’s visit as a “historic day” and praised the EU’s decision. He urged European officials to go further and declare some areas of Syria safe for return.
“The current situation is not sustainable for Lebanon. “It is not sustainable for Cyprus, it is not sustainable for the European Union,” he said.
The new funding announcement comes ahead of the annual Syria Crisis fundraising conference in Brussels later this month. After 13 years of civil war in Syria, donor fatigue has set in while the world’s attention turns to the humanitarian consequences of recent conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
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Associated Press writer Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus contributed to this report.
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