Report: Evacuation of 3,960 foreign refugees from Lebanon
Lebanon, Politics, 10/11/1999

The Lebanese daily al-Deyar has reported the details of an operation, carried out calmly and secretly and to be carried out urgently within a period not to exceed one week.

The Lebanese paper asserted that the sides main sides of this operation are the UN, Denmark, the US and Canada and it pertains to evacuating 3,960 refugees from Lebanon. Those refugees are of different nationalities. Among them are Iraqis, Sudanese, Algerians, Somali and other Africans.

The information collected by the paper raised questions on whether what is taking place will be an "introduction" to what has been rumored of an expected forthcoming plan to distribute the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon among certain countries.

Replying to a question asked by the paper, the United Nations High Comission on Refugees' representative in Lebanon, Rafik al-Saeedi, stressed this matter and said the evacuation process will be carried out on four stages. The first stage is to take place in the middle of this month, just after one week. He added that a team from Denmark's immigration department will come to transfer 137 refugees from those who reside temporarily and illegally in Lebanon to Denmark.

He added that in November a similar US team will come to take another 450 refugees to the US, the Canadian team will come in the first or second week of January 2000 to take 200 refugees, and then in February another US team will come to take more refugees.

Al-Saeedi said these countries will take these refugees and either give them their own nationality or take them to a third country where they can have its nationality.

This operation, however, resembles what used to take place with the Lebanese people when they were obliged to leave Lebanon. They mostly left to Britain, France or Denmark and are today citizens in the said countries.

Previous Stories:
  French source says Barak will withdraw from south Lebanon   (10/2/1999)
  Explosive charge in Ein al-Helweh camp   (10/2/1999)
  Lebanese resistance vows to continue resistance against Israel   (9/27/1999)

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