Thousands are pouring into Syria, fleeing worsening conflict in Lebanon

JDEIDET YABOUS, Syria (AP) — Families fleeing the escalating conflict in Lebanon poured into Syria in growing numbers on Wednesday, waiting for hours in heavy traffic to reach the relative safety of another war-torn country. Those numbers are expected to grow as Israel targets southern and eastern Lebanon in an aerial bombardment that local officials say has killed more than 600 people this week, at least a quarter of them women and children. Lines of buses and cars extended for several kilometers (miles) from the Syria border beginning on Monday, and some families were seen making the journey on foot. Once in Syria, people waited hours more to be processed by overwhelmed border officials, and relief workers handed out food, water, mattresses and blankets. “Many will have to spend the night outdoors waiting their turn,” Rula Amin, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s refugee agency, said in a statement. The cross-border flow was a striking reversal in fortunes given that Lebanon is still hosting more than one million Syrian refugees who fled the war in their country that began in 2011. In the Syrian border town of Jdeidet Yabous, some families sat glumly on the side of the road when Associated Press journalists visited the area. Before crossing the border, crowds packed into a government office to be processed by immigration officers and, in the case of Syrian citizens, to change $100 to Syrian pounds before entering — a measure imposed in an attempt to prop up the local currency by bringing more dollars into the country. Due to the sudden spike in demand, the supply of Syrian pounds at the border ran short. Some were returning refugees, like Emad al-Salim, who had fled Aleppo in 2014. “There were houses destroyed in front of me as we were coming out,” he said. They are from eastern Syria, but al-Lajji said she doesn’t know if they will return there. Mahmoud Ahmad Tawbeh from the village of Arnoun in the country’s south had come with an extended family of 35 people, planning to stay in a rented house in a Damascus suburb. “We left with difficulty, there were a lot of bombs dropping above our heads,” he said. Five or six houses in the village were destroyed and several neighbors were killed, he said. For many in Lebanon, particularly those living in the Bekaa Valley in the east, Syria appeared to be the quickest route to safety. One woman from the town of Harouf in southern Lebanon, who gave her family name, Matouk, said she had come with her brother’s wife, who is Syrian, to stay with in-laws. Several families near where they lived were killed, she said, and she was worried about her father and siblings who she had left behind. While the war in Syria is ongoing, active fighting has long been frozen in much of the country. Lebanese citizens, who can cross the border without a visa, regularly visit Damascus. Even before the latest escalation, some Lebanese had rented in Syria as a Plan B in case they needed to flee. Apart from those who fled the war, many Syrians come to Lebanon for work or family reasons, and regularly cross the border. However, many of those who came as refugees have been reluctant to return out of fear they could be arrested for real or perceived ties to the opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad or forcibly conscripted to the army. He had issued similar amnesties over the past years, but they largely failed to convince refugees to return, as have efforts by Lebanese authorities to organize “voluntary return” trips. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://apnews.com/8a1fbde03c81fb3672e27d479f5b5a34