According to its population, Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees worldwide. Apart from 1.1 million Syrians, who fled to Lebanon since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in spring 2011, already for decades hundreds of thousands Palestine refugees live in the little country in the eastern Mediterranean. Lebanon guarantees protection to these refugees, although it did not sign the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. As Lebanon disposes of no specific domestic refugee legislation or administrative regulations, mainly the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) take care of the refugee population. Since the political divide of the state into two rival camps in 2006, the political institutions of Lebanon barely have power to act. Therefore, they are hardly able to respond to the challenges, which Lebanon has to face because of the conflict in the neighboring country Syria.
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