Syria’s interim government says it is battling pro-Assad insurgents in the country’s Latakia region [Mohamad Daboul/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty]
Thousands of Syrians have reportedly crossed into northern Lebanon from coastal Syria in recent days fleeing violent clashes and attacks which have seen hundreds of civilians killed.
Akkar, Lebanon’s northernmost governorate bordering Syria, has seen an influx of people escaping the fighting between Damascus’ new rulers led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and loyalists to ousted President Bashar al-Assad.
Al-Sharaa says that his forces are battling insurgents in the region who have carried out attacks against interim authorities and other state-owned facilities, vowing to defeat them and urging them to disarm.
But witness accounts across social media platforms have said that not all those being targeted are pro-Assad militia or people who served in the former regime, and many of them are civilians, sharing their names and photographs.
Syria’s coastal region, which includes the Latakia and Tartus governorates, are majority of the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs, and there are growing concerns that the violence could take a sectarian turn.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Saturday said that over 1,000 people have been killed in several days of violence, including more than 700 Alawites.
Many have now sought refuge in Akkar and the nearby port city of Tripoli.
But this has drawn concerns from some Lebanese officials who say the fresh influx could cause tensions inside Lebanon; Akkar and Tripoli are majority Sunni with a sizable Alawite minority and have a history of tensions between anti and pro-Assad militant groups.
Some are worried there could be another spillover from Syria.
Lebanon Akkar MP Sajih Attieh has warned about the “very large waves” of displacement at the northern border, especially Akkar.
In comments he made to the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, the lawmaker revealed that “thousands have reached five or six Alawite villages in Akkar”. Other reports said 18 villages have received refugees.
“Akkar…now hosts thousands of displaced people, and about two thousand displaced people recently arrived in the Jabal Mohsen neighbourhood in Tripoli,” he said, explaining that he briefed Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri on these developments who in turn informed Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in order “to take the necessary measures”.
Attieh said up to 10,000 arrived in Akkar in one day as they fled in large groups, crossing illegal border routes.
“Currently, there are no legal crossings between us and Syria in northern Lebanon. Israel bombed the three [legal] crossings of Arida, Aboudiyeh and Bqayaa, so there is no General Security to control the movement of displacement,” he said, referring to the Israeli war last year.
He added that the Lebanese army was not stopping the waves of refugees from entering.
The porous and non-demarcated border between Lebanon and Syria has strained the Lebanese Republic for many years, as it has been used for smuggling and human trafficking. The issue was discussed between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Al-Sharaa, who met on the sidelines of an Arab Summit in Cairo earlier this week.
Lebanon already hosts around 2 million Syrian refugees since the war in Syria erupted in 2011 after Assad regime forces violently repressed democracy protests. Less than a million are registered with the UNHCR.
When the regime was ousted in December following a lighting rebel offensive, thousands of Syrians, many of whom were Shia, fled to Lebanon’s Beqaa region.
Attieh stressed that the Lebanese government must carry out its duties by regulating and counting the number of people entering to prevent the mistakes committed in the past 14 years.
“If the situation continues as it is, one million new displaced Syrians will be added to the two million who arrived years ago.”
