BBC在线收听下载:叙利亚难民逃往黎巴嫩

BBC news 2014-06-28

Stuck in Issad in eastern Lebanon, Syrian refugees have become a majority here and many of them have little hope of returning home soon. These mountains stretching into Syria have retreat for opposition fighters who fled the latest advance by the Syrian army and its ally - the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah. Meanwhile the Lebanese army has deployed in and around Issad as part of a security plan to contain the spillover.

Just a few curls on that throat is a Lebanese army checkpoint, familiar to everyone here. There is no way out of Issad, except bomb that throat and pass the checkpoint.

We met one refugee who was stopped at that checkpoint. Like many others he had crossed over into Lebanon illegally. But he says he wasn't expecting what happened next.

Next to the checkpoint, there is a two-storey building. They took me to a room on the second floor which has some gym equipment by the building staff. One of the soldiers asked me, if there is anything you had to say. I said no. Then he laid me down on one of the benches, and then it all started.

He says he was heavily beaten with sticks, cables and tasers as the soldiers tried to extract a confession linking him to Syrian rebels' fighters inside Lebanon.

One of them said, I have a new method. He put socks over my nose and mouth, two others put me down, while the men started pouring water on my face. I thought I was drowning. I had only seen this in films. I couldn't believe this was happening to me.

He was later released.

We asked the army for a comment and they said all military personnel are subject to military rules, and that of the person in question believed he was harmed by a soldier, he made us a few legal avenues to claim he's right. But there appears to be more than one case.

We have documented one case in early May where a Syrian man was stopped at the checkpoint, taken from the van to a room next to the checkpoint. He was beaten, kicked, punched; electric prods were used on him; he himself saw three other Syrians get beaten up later on that day because they did not have proper residency papers inside Lebanon. So we know a number of people have been beaten up in this one room next to this check point.

We called the army and asked again about the room behind the checkpoint, but they had no further comment. The soldiers at that checkpoint stand guard at the center of this spot, where a frontline of the Syrian war has edged its way into Lebanon. Some Syrians here have found new dangers where they sought refuge.

Romid Heign, BBC News, Issad.