The leader of the Maronite Church has appealed to the international community to begin the repatriation of 1.5 million Syrian refugees from Lebanon because they threaten to destabilise the country.
Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Raï, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, said the refugees, who are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, represented a “real demographic, political and security threat”.
“The presence of more than a million and a half Syrian refugees who emigrated and were displaced since 2011 have multiplied and turned into a heavy burden economically and financially on a country already in deep crisis,” he said.
