Lebanese authorities announced Tuesday morning that they had begun disinfecting 52 makeshift Syrian refugee camps across the country to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. Some 267 cases have been recorded.
The country has a surface area approximately the same as the Italian region of Abruzzo and a population of about four million Lebanese and one million Syrian refugees. Syrian refugees are mostly present in unregulated camps in the north, in Mount Lebanon, in the eastern Bekaa Valley and in the south. UNHCR had in recent days announced that it was starting a prevent campaign in the camps.
The General Security Directorate, the main intelligence agency in the country, announced that it had started, in collaboration with the municipalities in which the camps are located, police patrols. The patrols are to ensure that the refugees do not leave the borders of the camps and that the curfew announced on Saturday is complied with
SOURCE: ANSAmed
