EUROPEAN aid sent to Lebanon in an attempt to regulate migration by sea is funding practices that violate human rights, according to a damning report published by Human Rights Watch today.

As part of a policy of containing migration, authorities in Cyprus have physically pushed Syrian refugees back to Lebanon and Lebanese security agencies have deported them, the New York-based group said.

The report, based on interviews with 16 Syrians who tried to leave Lebanon in smugglers’ boats, found that 15 of them had “suffered human rights violations at the hands of Lebanese and/or Cypriot authorities.”