Manhunt

K. brings his hand to his chest. His fingers will forever be marked by the hammer blows he received during his nine years in prison in Syria.
He sighs, trying not to let it show.
The check-point is now behind him as he goes home by bus.
During this period of summary deportations, which has worsened over the past month, it is difficult to know how many, at the same check-point, have been met with a different fate.

The father of A., 23, learned that his son was stopped there only because he was informed by someone who recognized him at the location on the Syrian border where the deportation occurred.
He was with about 30 people. Nothing more was heard of A. for two days. Then the news.
He is in prison in the country he left when he was 14.
“They cannot take him for compulsory military service because he is the only son. They should release him, but who knows what they did to him. If they asked him where his family is, we will have to leave here”.
Deportations have always been there, following some procedure that met the requirements of “public safety”. But now they are really arbitrary and unjustified mopping-ups with immediate effect.

H. had left early in the morning without papers.
“There is a farmer who comes at dawn and brings fresh laban (yogurt)”.
The soldiers stopped him while he was walking near his house and took him away.

They decided to make him pay dearly for that fatherly and loving act towards his wife and children that he does before going to work.
A few hours later he found himself at the border with other 58 people.
He had to pay $300 between the ransom to the soldiers and the price to the traffickers to return to Lebanon.

A manhunt that sowed panic among the families and backfired on everyone.
The deserted streets, emptied by Syrians who no longer crowd them for fear of moving and going to work, are the bitter consequence for the local bus drivers who complain that there is no work.
The immediate realization that someone has decided that it is time to play the refugee card again on the political table. And that that card can cost you your life.
The road to the June conference for the donors of the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan in Brussels is also paved with Syrians deported from Lebanon to Syria.