TRIPOLI, Lebanon: At least 270 Syrian families have left a north Lebanon town, as hostility towards them mounted over a murder allegedly committed by a Syrian national, the UN refugee agency said on Friday.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees condemned “collective reprisals against Syrians in the town’’, of Bsharre, saying many of the families fled in fear without taking their belongings.
“Collective punishment... for a whole community for an incident involving one individual is unacceptable,” a UNHCR spokesperson said in a statement.
Many of those who fled the town said they were chased out by Bsharre residents after a Syrian on Monday was accused of shooting dead a Lebanese resident, sparking widespread tension and hostility.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported forced evictions of Syrians in the wake of the murder, but Bsharre’s mayor denied that the Syrians had left out of fear.
A correspondent in Tripoli saw dozens of Syrian families gathering outside a UNHCR building in the northern city.
A group of young men in Bsharre “assaulted us, threatened us and started a fire” in the house, Umm Khaled, a 31-year-old Syrian mother of five said.
“We picked up our children and ran away to Tripoli’’, located more than 40 kilometres east, she said.
Yassin Hassan, a 30-year-old Syrian who had lived in Bsharre for years, said he was beaten by a group of men.
“We ran away... without taking anything from our homes’’, he said. — AFP
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