“A real Syrian hunt is underway” says Capannini, Project Manager for Lebanon.
“We express s the utmost concern over the recent events of racism against Syrian refugees in Lebanon. We ask that the international community intervene before the situation precipitates with even more serious violence and with the serious risk that it can spread to other cities ». This is what Giovanni Paolo Ramonda, President of the Pope John XXIII Community declares, regarding the expulsion of 1,400 Syrian refugees from the city of Bcharre, in northern Lebanon. An escalation that began last week, following the murder of a Lebanese citizen by a Syrian citizen, which led the municipality of Bcharre, under pressure from popular uprisings, to expel the entire Syrian community.
"After the murder, Lebanese citizens organized themselves in a real" Syrian hunt ", closing the road leading to the city hospital to prevent the acces to injured Syrians" said Alberto Capannini, head of the project in Lebanon of the Pope John XXIII Community.
“We got informed about organized groups inspected every house in the city looking for Syrians, violently beating every refugee they encountered. About ten were seriously injured, while several houses were damaged and burned. Today - explains Capannini - no solution has been found for the 400 Syrians families who were forced to leave the area so they have to sleep on the street in the Akkar villages. Snow arrived in those mountainous areas and Syrian citizens cannot return home because of the war, while the Lebanese population is exasperated by the serious economic and institutional crisis ”.
For over five years, the volunteers of Operazione Colomba, Civil Peace Corps of the community of Don Benzi, have been present in Lebanon alongside the victims of the Syrian war in the refugee camp of Tel Abbas.
OPERAZIONE COLOMBA
