Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has called on Lebanese authorities to “open the sea” and flood Europe with a new wave of migrants.
Nasrallah made the threat during a televised address at a rally marking the eighth anniversary of the assassination of late Hezbollah Resistance military commander Mustafa Badreddine.
The militant leader called for “a national decision that says: we have opened the sea… whoever wants to leave for Europe, for Cyprus, the sea is in front of you. Take a boat and board it.”
His remarks came as part of mounting pressure on the European Union, which recently announced $1 billion in aid to Lebanon to pay for the country to keep Syrian migrants within its borders.
However, there is rising anti-Syrian sentiment within Lebanon, which has the world’s highest number of refugees per capita.
Natives were angry at their presence and staged riots.
Lebanon’s economy collapsed in 2019, prompting a mass exodus to Europe.
Nasrallah said that under Lebanon’s agreement with the EU, migrants “are prohibited (from leaving), and so they turn to smuggling and to rubber boats, and there are drownings in the sea, because the Lebanese army is implementing a political decision to stop them from migrating.”
Watch
Many Lebanese are angry that the EU money amounts to a bribe, in order to keep displaced Syrians from heading to Europe.
Nasrallah’s comments also highlighted how migrants are used as a political weapon against Western countries.
The wave, mostly comprised of young military men, is falsely labeled “refugees” by the media.
The media also attempted to blame Vladimir Putin for weaponizing migrants to destabilize the west.
Western European countries decided not to impose stricter border controls while incentivizing boat migrants to head to Europe by offering them free accommodation, healthcare, and other benefits at taxpayer expense.
READ: EU Passes Migration Pact to Flood Europe with 75 Million Migrants
