Syrian refugees check their names with Lebanese General Security officers at a gathering point where they prepare to cross the border back home to Syria in the eastern Lebanese border town of Arsal, Lebanon. Hundreds of Syrian refugees boarded a convoy of trucks laden with mattresses, blankets, water and fuel tanks and, in one case, a goat in the remote Lebanese mountain town of Arsal on Wednesday, heading home to Syria.
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Their journey is the latest attempt by Beirut to organize a mass refugee return from tiny, crisis-ridden Lebanon. Above, Syrian refugee child sit inside a car with their family, as they wait at a gathering point to cross the border back home to Syria, in the eastern Lebanese border town of Arsal, Lebanon.
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Many boarding the convoy in Arsal said Lebanon's unprecedented economic meltdown had pushed them to make the journey. With spiraling inflation and the cost of basic necessities like food and heating fuel soaring, nine out of 10 Syrian refugees in Lebanon now live in extreme poverty.
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Some are now returning to a country devastated by a civil war that started in 2011, killed hundreds of thousands and displaced half the country's pre-war population of 23 million.
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However, the returnees represent just a tiny fraction of the massive population of refugees who remain in Lebanon as the United Nations maintains that Syria is not safe for mass returns.
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Lebanese officials said more than 2,400 refugees had registered for Wednesday's return but only 1,700 were given the green light by Syrian authorities to come back. Many others who were approved ultimately decided not to go.
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A Syrian refugee girl stands on a pickup next to her mother, as they wait at a gathering point to cross the border back home to Syria.
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On the other side of the border, Syrian state media said ambulances were waiting with medicine and food packages.
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One of those heading back was Khalil al-Qadi, 41, with his family of six, heading to their hometown of Jarjir in the Damascus countryside. “We can't enroll our kids in school here,'' al-Qadi said about Lebanon. “The economic situation doesn't allow us to provide for them.''
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Lebanon has given shelter to more than 1 million Syrian refugees but many claim the number is far higher. The U.N. refugee agency has registered about 825,000 Syrians but stopped registering in 2015, at the request of Lebanese authorities.
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