FILE PHOTO: Lebanon's President Michel Aoun is pictured as he delivers a televised speech at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon December 27, 2021. Dalati Nohra/Handout via REUTERS
BEIRUT (Reuters) -Lebanon will start sending Syrian refugees back to their home country at the end of next week, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Wednesday, despite rights groups' fears for their safety.
Lebanon hosts the highest number of refugees per capita in the world. The government estimates that the country's population of over 6 million includes roughly 1.5 million refugees from neighbouring Syria, though well under 1 million are registered with the UNHCR.
Lebanon's minister for displaced people, Issam Charafeddine, in July announced a plan that he said would seek to return some 15,000 refugees to Syria per month, basing his move on a claim that Syria had become largely safe after more than a decade of war.
The plan would not involve the UNHCR, which maintains that conditions in Syria do not allow for the large-scale return of refugees.
The UNHCR did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in July that "Syria is anything but safe for returnees".
"Syrian refugees who returned between 2017 and 2021 from Lebanon and Jordan faced grave human rights abuses and persecution at the hands of the Syrian government and affiliated militias," Lama Fakih, director of HRW's Middle East Division, wrote in a post.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari and Maya Gebeily; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Nick Macfie)
