A reported , people were made homeless after the Beirut explosion on August 4, , again reigniting the issue of displacement in Lebanon. Lebanese households displaced between Whereas the second approach addresses displacement of citizens by conflicts and natural disasters after Of these, around , to , remained displaced when conflicts ended in The number of war-displaced in Lebanon dropped from 90, in to 7, in By the mids many households had lived in urban areas, especially Beirut, for over a decade building new attachments and raising families.
The implementation of the return policy was further hampered by gross mismanagement and corruption as the political parties transformed the disaster response architecture into personal and political fiefdoms. Decisions were also influenced by whether households were squatting at the time.
As a result, institutions addressing displacement encouraged sectarianism. By , international funding for the return process dried up and by , the Ministry for Displacement was still finalising its mandate stalled by a few dozen cases tied up in the Lebanese courts.
Despite the prevalence of displacement in Lebanon after see Table 1 , there is no centralised policy addressing internal displacement in Lebanon after the post-Taif return policy, and the country has not followed the growing trend in conflict prone states and drafted the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement into law.
Table 1: Displacement events impacting over 4, people in Lebanon, compiled from media reporting by author. Rather, a constellation of state and non-state institutions and actors mobilise to address displacement incidents following emergency events including in no particular order : the municipalities; the Lebanese Red Cross, the Lebanese Army, branches of the United Nations, various service ministries education, social affairs, interior, etc.
