Germany Suspends Deportation of Lebanese as Crisis Worsens

Currently under pressure from opposition politicians over his refusal to allow Lebanese refugees into Germany, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble announced in a newspaper report that the interior ministry is to suspend around 5,500 deportation orders on Lebanese citizens due to the escalating violence in their home country.

Schäuble told the Stuttgarter Zeitung on Friday that his ministry had instructed the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees to halt the deportations until further notice.

Under Section 11a of the asylum procedure law, the interior ministry has the power to temporarily suspend deportations to certain countries for up to six months if the judgment of the ministry is that the country to which the deportees would be returned is too dangerous.

Law allows extension of suspension

The ministry also has the power to increase the length of suspension in line with the continuing unrest in the deportees' home nation. Should the Middle East crisis continue for longer than six months, the ministry could extend its suspension of the Lebanese deportation orders.

The interior minister's decision will go some way to calming the furor that his statements over refugees from Lebanon prompted at the end of July.

Then Schäuble said it would be "premature" and "misguided" for Germany to take in Lebanese refugees, suggesting that helping Lebanese refuges in the region would be better than "luring" them to Europe.

Claudia Roth, leader of the opposition Green party, led the criticism of the German government for not taking a pro-active role in helping the growing number Lebanese refugees find asylum in the European Union.

"When the interior minister in the face of this catastrophe refuses to take in refugees, that is an expression of spiritual coldness and a lack of Christian charity and humanitarian responsibility" she said.

There are around 40,000 Lebanese living in Germany along with numerous German citizens of Lebanese origin. Over 6,000 German citizens have been evacuated from Lebanon since the beginning of the conflict there, according to the German foreign ministry.

Official numbers "underestimate" crisis

The UN has estimated that up to 800,000 Lebanese have been internally displaced since the Israeli bombing started. An estimated 119,625 people are living in 652 schools and public gardens in and around Beirut. An estimated 45 percent of the internally displaced are children.

The French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Thursday that current figures underestimated the humanitarian situation in Lebanon and called it "disastrous."

"On the humanitarian front, the situation is more and more worrying," Douste-Blazy told a news conference in Paris. "I would even say disastrous. We have passed the figure of one million displaced people and of these, half are children.

"We have passed the figure of 800 dead and sadly of these more than a third are children," he added. "In the south of the country only the old people are left at home."

Food and medicine running out

"In the Bekaa valley, since yesterday's military operations, a quarter of the population has left," the minister said. "Food is increasingly expensive in Beirut. Medicine for children is beginning to run out."

Elsewhere, Greece announced that it would provide shipping for free to transport European Union aid from Cyprus to Beirut.

"The shipments will go in on a Greek navy ship and the republic of Cyprus will offer for free the services of the port of Larnaka," the foreign ministry in Athens said in a statement.

EU countries should first arrange the transport of the aid to Cyprus, the ministry said.

Aid making its way into Lebanon

Turkey said Thursday it would ship food worth $1.2 million (938,000 euros) to Lebanon and Syria for Lebanese people displaced by Israeli offensives.

The bulk of the 900-ton supplies would be shipped to Lebanon on trucks, starting from next week, while one sixth would go to Lebanese refugees who fled to Syria, the emergency situations agency said.

Meanwhile, 20 trucks carrying UN aid have arrived in Lebanon from neighboring Syria, a spokesman for the UN refugee body said.

"Three convoys of 20 trucks have crossed into Lebanon carrying a total of 135 ton of aid," said Laurens Jolles, acting representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.