Last month I went to Northern Lebanon, on a short mission with CARE International, to help them figure out a strategy to deal with the dire housing problems faced by Syrian refugees. To short cut to this presentation (more pictures than words, go here). Almost immediately I was blown away by the scale of the crisis in Lebanon: a country of just over 4.2 million people is hosting almost 1.5 million refugees. That's around a third of the population! Meaning that Lebanon now has the highest per capital concentration of refugees in the world.
Imagine Britain or France taking in 20 million people, and the kind of impact that would have on public services that people often complain aren't good enough as it is. Well, it's not really any different for Lebanon, except that their public services have been in worse shape than those in rich European countries. Talking of Europe, it appears that the entire EU block has offered asylum to a grand total of 134,000 Syrian refugees, so around 10% that Lebanon has taken. Yet the population difference is so great it means that Europe is offering refuge to 1,000 times fewer refugees compared to Lebanon.
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| Tripoli, looking East over the mountains towards Syria |
Imagine Britain or France taking in 20 million people, and the kind of impact that would have on public services that people often complain aren't good enough as it is. Well, it's not really any different for Lebanon, except that their public services have been in worse shape than those in rich European countries. Talking of Europe, it appears that the entire EU block has offered asylum to a grand total of 134,000 Syrian refugees, so around 10% that Lebanon has taken. Yet the population difference is so great it means that Europe is offering refuge to 1,000 times fewer refugees compared to Lebanon.
