The international community has not fulfilled its commitments to help Lebanon tackle the Syrian refugee crisis, which cost the country almost $30 billion, Lebanese President Michel Aoun told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th May, 2020) The international community has not fulfilled its commitments to help Lebanon tackle the Syrian refugee crisis, which cost the country almost $30 billion, Lebanese President Michel Aoun told Sputnik.
"The cost of the Syrian refugee crisis overwhelms the country's ability to address it. The international community has turned a deaf ear [to Lebanon's calls to resolve the issue], and did not pay any attention to its consequences that might affect our country. ... If it had fulfilled its obligations, we would not have reached that awful state of affairs," Aoun said.
The president has noted that the global community continues to put pressure on Lebanon to bear the crisis' burden even though the country has been facing a deteriorating economic situation.
"We have recently come to an unprecedented economic and financial crisis in our history. One of the main reasons for it is that Lebanon has incurred costs totaling almost $30 billion as a result of the presence of over 1.5 million of Syrian refugees on our soil, according to the International Monetary Fund," the president noted.
According to Aoun, the ongoing crisis in Lebanon has been exacerbated by the spread of the coronavirus disease, and the government must now adopt financial reforms to help both Syrians and the country's citizens who lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic.
In early April, Aoun said that Lebanon had already spent around $25 billion on handling the influx of migrants and refugees, calling on the global community to provide financial support.
Lebanon has long been suffering from an acute economic crisis, with its national Currency plunging against the US Dollar and causing prices of bread and other necessities to soar. This prompted nationwide protests in October that unseated the previous government. No particular relief followed as the COVID-19 outbreak added to economic woes by putting businesses on hold and people out of jobs.
On Thursday, the Lebanese authorities endorsed an economic plan to put the country back on track toward "real reforms" and tackle the worsening financial crisis accompanied by nationwide anti-government protests that the country has been facing since October.
