A few weeks ago, a refugee using the pseudonym “Laila” left Dahiye, a South Beirut suburb smashed by Israeli airstrikes. She fled with her family, and travelled east to the Syrian border, with just enough money to cover the journey. But when she crossed the frontier, at the Al-Dabusiyeh checkpoint, Syrian authorities forcibly disappeared her spouse. “Until now, I don’t know where my husband is or why they took him,” Laila explained in a voice note. “I’m currently staying with my family. We are all staying in two rooms. My children are sick and I can’t afford to buy them medicine, diapers or milk.”
Not every Syrian who has crossed back from Lebanon has faced Bashar al-Assad’s wrath so directly — yet in her poverty and her desperation, Laila is far from alone. Around 440,000 people are estimated to have fled Lebanon to Syria since Israel escalated its military offensive in September. Like Laila, most are Syrians: some 1.5 million fled the Assad regime during their country’s bloody civil war. And, just like Laila, they now face a Catch-22: either taking their chances in Lebanon, dodging Israeli bombs, or else returning home to the same dangers that forced them to flee in the first place.
While returnees are currently coming from nearby Lebanon, meanwhile, Syrians could yet return from far further afield. In mid-October, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy urged EU leaders to explore strategies to enable the return of Syrian refugees, as they discussed hardening the bloc’s migration policy at a summit in Brussels. Ahead of the meeting, Meloni stressed the need to work with “all actors” to make this happen, including the Assad regime itself. And while the talk right now is of “voluntary” returns, some Syrians already fear that the Europeans may yet use coercion — conveniently dumping their liberal agenda and condemning many more people to disappearance or worse.
For Syria is far from safe. That’s clear enough from the numbers, with the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reporting at least 26 cases of returnees who have been arrested and detained by government forces. SNHR’s September report recorded 206 arbitrary detentions across the country. That included nine children and 17 women, even as almost a dozen returnees were swept up too. Government forces, for their part, were responsible for 128 of these cases — but Kurdish and Islamist factions were also involved.
Dovetail that with countless anecdotal stories of torture, expulsion and murder, and it’s little wonder that so many Syrians are reluctant to head east. But what of those who do decide to take the plunge? The journey into Syria is itself fraught with danger. Many are also obliged to travel on the backs of pickup trucks, or struggle through on foot to avoid arrest. Some returnees prefer heading through opposition-held territories to avoid being picked up by government troops, though that carries its own risks: of extortion by opposition militias and bandits.
If they chose to return via official channels, there is a cost: $100 upon re-entry. “People scrape some clothes and valuables, rush away, and are forced to walk,” says Mohammad Al-Abdullah, director of the SJAC. “Nothing in those returns is voluntary, safe or dignified. And though Damascus has often made promises of amnesty for returnees, these rules don’t apply to those thousands of Syrians who were previously detained for peaceful political protest. In any case, Al-Abdallah says that government forgiveness cannot be trusted, describing Assad’s proclamations as a PR exercise aimed at Western countries eager to dump their Syrians.
After 13 years of war, these refugees are returning to a land of shattered cities, fallow farms, and inflation hovering at 120%. They usually arrive with very limited resources: nine out of 10 refugee families in Lebanon live in extreme poverty. Even if they do have funds, meanwhile, they’re likely to find their homes in ruins, or else discover they’ve been confiscated by the state. Flour, oil and other basic food stuffs are hard to find, and the government certainly won’t help new arrivals secure them. In fact, there’s some evidence that returnees are actively discriminated against for aid and shelter, even as electricity, water and healthcare are in desperately short supply too.
All told, it’s unsurprising that Syria is in the midst of a humanitarian disaster: with 7.2 million people displaced inside their own country, some 70% of the population needs humanitarian help, while a full 90% live in poverty. Yet despite the fact that the UNHCR has warned in July that conditions in Syria are too unsafe to promote large-scale voluntary returns, several foreign governments seem keen to promote just that.
Across the Mediterranean, Meloni has led the way. In July, she reappointed an Italian ambassador to Damascus, making Italy the first EU to formally restore relations with Assad after he dragged his country into bloodshed about a decade ago. That diplomatic move came a few days after eight EU countries, including Italy, called on the bloc to “review and assess” its policy on Syria — with the apparent aim of creating conditions for “safe, voluntary, and dignified returns” of Syrian refugees.
It’s hardly surprising that European politicians such Meloni are so keen to prod Syrians back across the sea. If nothing else, anti-migration sentiment is good politics. It’s also telling that, notwithstanding their rapprochement with Assad, leaders like Meloni equally seem to accept the country isn’t really safe. How else to explain the efforts by some EU states to establish “safe zones” within Syria, whereby returning refugees would be sent to live away from their hometowns?
Al-Abdullah is unimpressed, noting, among other things, that it risks exacerbating sectarian tensions in what remains a traumatised, suspicious country. That’s even before you reflect on the huge pressure such a plan would put on basic services.
No less important, SJAC’s director points to serious consequences if normalisation with Assad’s government proceeds, especially if some EU states finally move from a voluntary scheme towards active deportation. “This is only a temporary fix,” is how Al-Abdullah puts it, warning of the suffering that would inevitably be inflicted on returning Syrians, surely breaching the human rights obligations of European states.
Criticising the bloc for “closing its eyes” to the situation on the ground, Philippe Dam of Human Rights Watch believes Brussels is “repainting” Syria to suit its agenda. “There’s a risk,” he says, “that the Assad regime’s violations might be understated for short-term convenient goals of some EU leaders.”
In any case, the EU is already working with non-EU nations to push Syrians home, despite an obvious lack of safeguards. In May, for instance, the EU pledged a €1 billion financial assistance package to Lebanon, partly to fund the country’s border force. Not unrelated, almost 14,000 Syrian refugees were forced over the border into Syria last year. It’s a similar story in Turkey, with the EU paying Ankara to facilitate returns.
That, of course, still leaves one question: what’s the alternative? Dam suggests the EU could put political capital into improving Syria’s human rights situation. Al Abdullah, for his part, argues European governments should continue pushing for a peaceful settlement to the country’s war.
But with Syria casting off its pariah label — despite 13 years of brutal war — it’ll take actual incentives for Assad to soften. One option here is sanctions: not slapping on more, but reducing them, albeit if the regime makes genuine efforts to protect returnees. The bloc might also engage with Syria’s Arab neighbours, encouraging them to offer Assad financial support in return for good behaviour. If nothing else, this approach could prove mutually beneficial: there are around a million Syrians currently in Jordan, and anything that encouraged them to leave voluntarily would surely please the Hashemites.
Unfortunately, though, nothing so thoughtful seems likely — not from the Jordanians and certainly not from the EU. Rather, the bloc seems set to pursue its own interests above all else, and rely on liberal pieties until they’re no longer useful.
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Source: UnHerd Read the original article here: https://unherd.com/