The UN’s refugee agency estimates that more than 300,000 people have been displaced in Iran and Lebanon due to US and Israeli military campaigns there, but warns that the numbers will have increased significantly as the conflict enters its second week.
At least 100,000 people were displaced in Iran in the first two days of US-led strikes on the country, but due to communications blackouts the agency has not been able to obtain an updated figure since Sunday.
“We’ve been able to confirm at least 100,000 people moving from Tehran in first two days of the crisis. That is now a dated figure. We don’t have an update. You can expect there will be significant movement,” said Matthew Saltmarsh, a spokesman for the UNHCR in Geneva.
“We don’t have a lot of detail to say what’s been happening in the last days. Our services remain open, our centres remain open. We continue to work but in a constrained way,” he told The National.
Iran hosts 1.65 million refugees, the majority of whom are Afghans, and it is not yet known how many have been displaced by the current conflict. “The borders of Iran have not been busier than they normally are,” Mr Saltmarsh said.
In Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, the Israeli military ordered hundreds of thousands of residents out of the southern suburb, which is controlled by Hezbollah, as well as parts of the eastern Bekaa Valley.
About 100,000 people have fled to shelters in Lebanon and the number of displaced is expected to rapidly increase following “unprecedented” Israeli warnings ordering people out of large parts of the country, a senior UN official said on Friday.
“What we saw in the last couple of days is, I would say … unprecedented in terms of the scale here in Lebanon of the warnings, the displacement orders, and the reaction, the panic also, that this has all created,” said Imran Riza, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Lebanon, told Reuters.
“At the moment, there are about 100,000 people that are, as of this morning, in some 477 collective shelters. There are some 57 shelters that still have some space, but basically the capacity is being reached very, very quickly,” Mr Riza said.
Noting the panic and gridlock caused by the Israeli displacement orders, Mr Riza said: “We had people moving all over the place and not knowing where to go to. So yes, I think we're going to have an increased number quite quickly,” he said.
He noted that more than a million people were uprooted in Lebanon during a war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2024, 75 per cent to 80 per cent of whom were not in shelters. “This time again, the majority will not be in shelters probably,” he said.
Over just four days in Lebanon, UNHCR delivered over 65,000 relief items to 22,000 displaced people in government shelters, including mattresses, blankets, jerry cans, solar lamps and sleeping mats.
At least 33,600 Syrians and some 3,000 Lebanese have crossed into Syria, according to Syrian authorities. They include Syrian refugees in Lebanon who had already decided to go home, as well as others who have fled the continuing conflict.
