Irish priest says passport held by Lebanese authorities

A Dublin priest who founded a school for Syrian refugees in Lebanon says he cannot return to Ireland as he is unable to get his passport returned from the Lebanese authorities.

Fr William Stuart originally from Clontarf who also served in Dalkey, initially went to Lebanon “as a volunteer, really as a tourist” in the early 2000s, before being asked by a non-governmental agency to set up a school for refugees in 2013.

His Schools for Syria afternoon “madrasa” in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre offers refugee children basic Arabic, English and math subjects, play and a sandwich, five days a week.

Since 2011 when civil war broke out in Syria, some 1.5 million refugees have fled across the border to refugee camps in Lebanon. The numbers include about 500,000 children, some without parents.

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Through his schoolsforsyria.org and many trips home to Ireland to raise funds, Fr Stuart was able to keep going and even expand classes during the ongoing Lebanese teachers’ strike, when the currency devalued dramatically and reduced state teachers’ salaries.

Fr Stuart says things began to get difficult for him when the refugees were targeted for deportation to Syria, as the economy crashed. “It is like the ‘send the boats back’ campaign against migrants in Britain. It is a distraction from the troubles in the country, people are seeking someone to blame.”

The school started to be visited by the military, his own role and papers were questioned and earlier this year when he sent in his passport as part of an application for a work permit that normally would take 20 to 25 days, it did not come back. Nor did the work permit.

The result is that he cannot get out of the country and was unable to come home to Ireland when the school closed for its usual end-of-year holiday. In recent weeks, he was in his house when a rocket fired by the Israelis against Hamas struck nearby and he felt his house shake. Israel is just south of Tyre.

Displaced children work in the camps in Lebanon, selling anything – sometimes themselves – to get money for their families.

Providing even basic education is an avenue for the refugees to better their position, but “even sometimes their families do not see the point in that”, said Fr Stuart.

“They [the authorities] are never going to tell me to go, but they are making my like impossible for me to stay,” he said.

“There is a reason that soldiers are given R&R [rest and recreation],” Fr Stuart said. “It is about mental health, you can’t just keep going without a break.”

In addition the routine searches and difficulties put in his way are “too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence”, he said.

Fr Stuart said he had made “many” journeys to the authorities in Beirut to try to get his passport back and had missed many events and fundraisers at home in Ireland. “Three times now I have had to cancel,” he said. Events he has missed at home include a gala fundraising dinner and the funeral of a best friend’s mother, and he is very concerned about a wedding he is to perform in a matter of weeks.

Fr Stuart said his mental health is beginning to suffer from the strain. “I don’t know what is happening and I want my passport back. The school is closed for the break and I have nothing to do” he said. He is now hoping some publicity will spur the Lebanese authorities to return his passport.

The Lebanese ambassador responsible for Irish affairs, Rami Mortada, told The Irish Times that he has this week been reassured “that Fr Stuart’s visa application was approved and forwarded to the relevant regional department to print the new visa on his passport”.

The ambassador, who is based in London, said: “Fr Stuart will be given back his passport with his new residence visa stamped on it, within a few days”.

He said: “Fr Stuart’s passport had been kept with the visa application as is the normal procedure for all applications.”