Lebanon has agreed to ease the plight of Iraqi refugees in the country, the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, announced on Wednesday in Beirut.

The authorities will soon release hundreds of Iraqis who had been detained because they are in the country illegally, said the regional director of UNHCR, Stephane Jaquemet. The UNHCR and Caritas, the Catholic aid organisation, will help them, as well as tens of thousands of other illegal Iraqi refugees, to regularise their status during a three-month grace period.

But the measures stop short of giving Iraqis special residence permits. Najla Chahda, director of Caritas’ Migrant Centre in Beirut, said that the release and the grace period offered Iraqi refugees, “a chance to feel a bit more comfortable”. She said it was the best they could hope for as long as Lebanon wasn’t prepared to offer special status for refugees.

The measures follow last year’s harsh criticism of the Lebanese authorities from human rights groups and the UNHCR over the treatment of the refugees, particularly the practice of jailing illegal Iraqis who had been picked up in security sweeps and keeping them in detention unless they agreed to return to Iraq. The groups also called on the government to officially recognise the refugees and offer them special residence permits.

Mr Jaquemet said that the steps represented a positive development. “We are happy to acknowledge that there has been a change in the approach,” he said.

The UNHCR will give financial assistance and try to help the refugees find employers to sponsor their presence in the country. “My main concern is that many employers will not want to get involved in this,” said Mr Jaquemet. The estimated 400 detainees that are to be released will be given priority.

Lebanon hosts an estimated 50,000 Iraqi refugees, some 80 per cent of whom are thought to be in the country illegally. The number pales in comparison to neighbouring Syria, where estimates go as high as 1.5 million refugees. Most of the Iraqis in Lebanon have illegally crossed the porous border from Syria.

Mr. Jaquemet of the UNHCR warned that the authorities had made clear that the grace period was not open ended. This was so that the easing of the situation in Lebanon was not seen as an incentive for more refugees in Syria to cross the border.