LEBANON: Refugee hosts feeling the pinch

IRIN

Fewer tourists, lower levels of investment by Gulf states and reduced opportunities for cross-border trade with Syria are adversely affecting Lebanon’s most vulnerable people, including the hosts of many of the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees. Most of the refugees in Lebanon are hosted by private families in areas near the Syrian border in the north and in the Beqa’a Valley.

An as yet unpublished study by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) seen by IRIN, says this is putting a considerable economic strain on Lebanese hosts in areas which were among the country’s poorest even before the refugee influx.

Source: IRIN

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