'I Hope To God We Will Be Safe': Refugees In Lebanon Start Returning To Syria
The Lebanese government is encouraging departures, but the U.N. objects. "We are at the service of the refugees," says a Lebanese security official, "but we have reached the limit of our capability."
Hala hugged her 10-month-old baby close as she sat in the front seat of the pickup truck piled with the family's few possessions — thin mattresses, blankets, a small suitcase — as she waited to cross into Syria.
She had dressed neatly for the journey, in a carefully pinned maroon headscarf and black abaya gown. She tried to think of the positives: Her family would no longer be strangers in a foreign land; her children would set foot in their home country for the first time.
But as her convoy began to move toward the Syrian border, her nerve wavered.
"Do you
