Syrian refugees squeezed out of livelihoods in Lebanon

Omar first came to Lebanon from Syria’s Idlib province as a teenager 25 years ago, eventually climbing the economic ladder from driving a taxi and selling vegetables to owning his own shoe shop in the seaside town of Naameh.
He feels quite at home in Lebanon, but the feeling is not mutual.
After more than one million Syrians flooded into Lebanon to escape their country’s civil war, maintaining residency status has become difficult. Now both he and his business have been declared illegal. Earlier this month, the local government in Naameh issued a decree ordering businesses owned or operated by Syrians to close by the end of the month. The only acceptable work for Syrians, the text read, was in "agriculture, cleaning and construction".
For shop owners like Omar and Syrian employees of Lebanese-owned businesses, desperation is starting to set in as they risk losing their livelihoods in Lebanon but have nowhere to go.
"If they shut our businesses down, there are two things we can do," Omar said. "Either we can stand on the road and rob people, or we can organise, find somebody to give us weapons and have another revolution here."
As he spoke, images of Syria’s war flashed on the television set in his shop.
In January, Lebanese labour minister Mohammad Kabbara announced that Lebanon would start cracking down on foreign labour in the country, ensuring that foreigners hired in Lebanon have the correct permits and are not working in fields where they compete with Lebanese.
Naameh is among the first towns to obey the ministerial edict.
The mayor of Naameh, Charbel Matar, said the town was simply following the law. But he also said the refugee crisis had placed great strain on his town, which now hosts 16,000 Syrians on top of about 23,000 Lebanese. Cheaper Syrian labour has made jobs more difficult to come by for some Lebanese. Naameh’s infrastructure is overstretched. And while many Syrians receive aid from humanitarian organisations, he said, poor Lebanese in his town do not.
"I don’t have a problem standing next to the Syrians in their difficult situation. But we have to stand with our own people first before we stand with the Syrians," Mr Matar said.

Source: The National