Up to 24,000 Flee Syria Violence into Lebanon

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Saturday that over 24,000 Syrian refugees fled the unrest in their country to Lebanon.

A weekly update by the UNHCR said that “13,405 refugees have been registered in the North in coordination with the Higher Relief Council.”

The report noted that there are over 9,000 people in Akkar and around 3,000 people in Tripoli.

“The latest estimates indicate that there are around 9,250 Syrian refugees in the Bekaa… and limited number of refugees in Beirut, including 801 registered people,” according to the UNHCR.

The report pointed out that 13 injured Syrians have been submitted to hospitals for treatment.

On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman met Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and expressed concern that people in the region and around the world "have not done enough to be supportive of the opposition in Syria to (Syrian president Bashar) Assad."

He visited at the head of a U.S. delegation the Lebanese-Syrian border at the Bqayaa crossing of Wadi Khaled in northern Lebanon.

Lieberman also voiced gratitude to the Lebanese government and various organizations for their aid.

He arrived in Beirut on Tuesday, and held talks with senior Lebanese officials voicing the need to provide the Syrian people and refugees with further assistance.