Lebanon urges global aid to cope with Syrian refugee crisis

A senior Lebanese official on Thursday called on the international community to help it cope with the Syrian refugee crisis.
Addressing the opening session of a seminar on regional response measures for the Syrian crisis, Lebanese Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said the large scale influx of displaced Syrians has created very serious social and economic problems in his country.
Derbas called on Lebanon's friends in the international community to share this collective responsibility by giving more aid as fast and as much as they can to Lebanon in order to avoid the collapse of the country's economy and a possible humanitarian crisis, and to maintain security and stability in Lebanon.
He also mentioned that Lebanon has so far only received less than 30 percent of the needed 174 million U.S. dollars of aid.
Most of the Syrian refugees settled on the border rural areas, said Derbas, adding that this has deepened the poverty problems there, with the number of refugees far exceeding local populations in many places, he added.
Also, because of the refugees, Lebanon's infrastructure, such as roads, electricity, water, sanitation services, faces even greater challenges.
According to the latest UN report, Lebanon hosts more than one million Syrians, who fled their homeland because of the three-year old bloody civil war. These refugees represent almost a quarter of the tiny Arab country's entire population.