Fire destroys Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon, leaving nearly 500 homeless

A fire swept through a Syrian refugee camp in eastern Lebanon on Saturday, destroying all 59 tents housing 75 families, witnesses said. The blaze broke out at the camp in Bar Elias, a town in the Zahle district of the Bekaa Valley, where about 486 people were living, an Anadolu correspondent reported. The fire destroyed the entire camp, leaving hundreds of Syrian refugees without shelter. No injuries were reported, and Lebanese authorities had not commented on the cause of the blaze.

Lebanon has hosted large numbers of Syrian refugees since the conflict in Syria began in 2011. Lebanese authorities estimated the Syrian refugee population at about 1.5 million in January, including nearly 880,000 registered with the UN refugee agency. The Lebanese government launched a voluntary return program in June 2025 as part of broader efforts to facilitate the return of Syrian refugees to their country. More than 500,000 Syrian refugees were confirmed or believed to have returned from Lebanon by the end of 2025, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' annual report.

Of those, nearly 240,300 returns were assessed as voluntary.