Weekly News Report: July 9-16, 2022

July 18, 2022

Weekly News Reports 2022

–Photo Credit: Mohamed Azakir, “Lebanon telecoms mark-up threatens migrants’ link to jobs and safety”, Reuters

Articles and views shared in the Weekly News Report do not necessarily represent ARM’s views. Information in these articles has not been fact-checked by ARM and may contain some errors. ARM is simply compiling all news relevant to migrant communities to inform our advocacy efforts and to facilitate the work of organizations that cater to migrant communities.

A Syrian Child Killed and 2 Injured by Stray Bullets [here] [here] and [here]

3 Syrian children were hit by stray bullets in Tripoli, Bekaa, and Akkar. 11-year-old Khaled El Hamad was killed immediately and transferred to Bekaa Hospital, while L.H was injured and transferred to Tripoli’s Governmental Hospital, where he was deemed to be in a critical state. Not much info can be found on the third child, who was shot in Wadi Khaled in Bekaa.

Few media outlets are reporting accurately about the death of Syrian children in Lebanon, while others are omitting their nationality in their reporting.

For example, Orient News reported that Yamen Al Yassine, an 11-year-old Syrian child was shot last month during a police patrol in the southern suburb of Beirut while chasing a wanted man. Both Lebanon24 and Tayyar.org did not mention Yamen’s nationality or his name from their reporting.

It’s unclear whether this omission was deliberate or not, but it definitely stands out amidst a heavy media campaign against Syrian refugees.

Migrant Workers Face Limited Access to Internet as Telecoms Prices Rise [here] and [here]

Migrant workers are faced with detrimental challenges as prices of telecommunications rise. These challenges tackle their safety, jobs and mental health.

Kenyan activist Noel Musanga reported on these challenges. “All the time, I’m on the phone receiving complaints from the girls on contract who are in trouble,” she told Reuters, “So, I have to have the internet to reach them and solve all these problems.”

Migrant workers rely heavily on their connection to the Internet to communicate with their families back home and with each other in cases of emergency, which makes access to the internet a matter of life or death.

Lebanese Government Cooperates with Assad Regime to Deport Syrian Refugees [here] [here] and [here]

Issam Charafeddine, Minister of the Displaced, said that he is “serious” about implementing the plan to send 15,000 Syrian refugees a month. He stated that “whatever the UNHCR’s position is, we will go ahead with the plan.”

Charafeddine is set to visit Syria next week to discuss the plan’s timeline with Hussein Makhlouf, Syria’s Local Administration and Environment Minister. He claimed that the Syrian government has “eased matters a lot for returns even when it comes to security matters.”

This statement contradicts ACHR’s report, as well as the recent arrest of 11 Syrians who illegally entered Syria following Assad’s amnesty. Al Modon reported that the illegal entry was not the reason for the arrest, rather, there was an arrest warrant in their names. Charafeddine described such reports as a “fear campaign.”

Meanwhile, Al Diyar Newspaper released an article highlighting the history of “voluntary returns” of Syrian refugees. They mentioned that the Lebanese GS, in coordination with the Syrian GS, has successfully repatriated more than 400,000 Syrian refugees -referred to as immigrants-. It’s unclear where this number comes from. According to Daraj, there isn’t an accurate number of Syrians who got deported from Lebanon to Syria available publicly.

ACHR documented 112 cases of deportation between 2019 and June 2022. On the other hand, the Lebanese GS confirm that they “sent back” 6345 Syrians between April 25 of 2019 and September 19 of 2021.

Weekly News Report: July 9-16, 2022