BAR ELIAS, Lebanon // Amid the verdant fields of the eastern Bekaa Valley, thousands of Lebanon’s latest unwanted guests live in a crowded camp made indistinguishable from the hundreds of other of shabby refugee settlements here only by the cement brick wall surrounding it.
The Syrian camp is called Al Awde - The Return.
Its residents want to go home eventually, but many feel that Lebanon is trying to force them back while their country is still locked in a complicated war with no end in sight.
Last month, hundreds of troops backed by vehicle-mounted machine guns arrived at Al Awde before the sun rose over the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. An afternoon raid on the camp the day before had netted about a dozen young men who lacked residency papers, but the scale of the morning raid dwarfed the first with at least 50 refugees detained.
“They came in full military gear, they came like they were going to war,” said Suleiman, a 53-year-old camp resident who, like others who spoke to The National, did not want to disclose his full name.
The soldiers moved from shack to shack searching for military-age males, residents said, swearing and hitting those they arrested for not having proper documents.
At least 50 men – including Suleiman’s son and brother – were loaded on to trucks and driven away to a military base.
The men lacked valid residency permits, but these have become almost impossible to obtain after the government introduced restrictions in January aimed at the more than 1.2 million Syrian refugees already in Lebanon and those trying to get in.
The first step was restricting entry into Lebanon, essentially barring everyone except those in extreme circumstances – such as children being reunited with parents, people in need of urgent medical care not available in Syria, and disabled people with relatives registered in Lebanon - and even then only on a case by case basis.
For refugees already here, renewing their annual residency permits became more complicated.
On top of the existing US$200 (Dh734) fee, refugees are now required to provide a notarised pledge not to work, a copy of a lease agreement from their landlord, a certified attestation from the mukhtar – a mayor-like official – and, in some cases, a Lebanese sponsor to vouch for them.
Getting the paperwork is not easy. Many refugees rent without a formal lease agreement, and local municipal chiefs who feel overwhelmed by the refugee presence can refuse to give their blessings.