The “Future Movement” attacked the decision to transfer the displaced from the Beirut waterfront to lands belonging to the capital’s municipality, meters away from the current location, considering it a “random” decision that is being promoted as having been made “with the efforts of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and in coordination with the governor, the municipality, and the ministries of social affairs and the interior.”
In a statement, the movement believed that the decision came as a result of “caving in to political and partisan agendas that insist on challenging the decisions of the Lebanese state,” considering that it obstructs the transfer of displaced persons to approved shelter centers, especially the Sports City.
The Future Movement held Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, the governor of Beirut and its municipality, in addition to the relevant ministries, most notably the Ministries of Interior and Social Affairs, “full responsibility for the repercussions of the decision and any additional chaos that may result from it,” noting that warnings and calls to adopt “balanced and studied solutions that preserve the interests of Beirut and its people and respect the dignity of the displaced” were ignored.
The movement affirmed its refusal to “turn any area in Beirut into a new fait accompli imposed on its people,” considering that the residents of the capital “should not pay the price for the randomness and confusion in managing this file.”
On the other hand, he stressed that the state has the right of the displaced to provide “decent and organized shelter centers that preserve their dignity,” calling on the displaced to respond to existing efforts to transfer them to the Sports City shelter center, in a way that ensures “minimum humanitarian conditions” and puts an end to what he described as “managing the file with a mentality of patchwork, reactions, and political exploitation.”
