A group of 20 Lebanese and foreign organizations on Thursday denounced recent deportations of Syrian refugees from Lebanon to their war-torn home country.
"The Lebanese Armed Forces have recently and summarily deported hundreds of Syrians back to Syria, where they are at risk of persecution or torture," said the groups, which include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
They added in a signed joint statement that since the beginning of April, the Lebanese army has been carrying out "discriminatory raids" on the houses of Syrian refugees across Lebanon, and then immediately deporting most of them.
The organizations have accused Lebanese authorities of blaming the country's economic crisis on the presence of Syrian refugees, who since 2011 have been fleeing their war-torn homeland to neighbouring Lebanon.
According to information obtained from aid organizations, around 1,100 Syrians have been arrested since the beginning of this year, of whom more than 600 people have been deported to Syria.
Some of the people who were deported were arrested upon arrival at the border by Syrian authorities and have since disappeared, the groups quoted some refugees as saying.
Anti-Syrian sentiment has recently grown in Lebanon, with many Lebanese officials saying Syria is now safe and that Syrians should be repatriated.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR estimates that at least 1.5 million Syrians live in Lebanon, but only about 800,000 of them are officially registered with the agency.
Syria's civil war has left at least 350,000 people dead and displaced 13 million, some inside Syria while others fled to neighbouring countries including Lebanon and Turkey.
