SYRIA GOV’T ABUSES OF RETURNING REFUGEES ‘FULLY OPERATIONAL’: HRW

Beirut, Lebanon – Continuing Syrian government human rights abuses mean refugees should not be returned, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday, urging host nations to adhere to the warning.

The New York-based organisation said in a new report it documented extrajudicial killings, torture, kidnappings, and sexual violence of returned Syrian refugees, many of whom had security clearances from the government before coming back.

“The government continues to commit human rights abuses against Syrians, and so long as this continues any talk of returns would be premature,” HRW’s Syria researcher Sara Kayyali said on Wednesday.

In its latest report – Our Lives Are Like Death: Syrian Refugee Returns from Lebanon and Jordan – the rights group interviewed 65 Syrian refugees who returned from Lebanon and Jordan between 2017 and 2021 or their family members.

According to the United Nations, there are more than 851,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon and about 670,000 in Jordan.

In the last few years, #Lebanon has adopted increasingly coercive policies to pressure Syrian refugees to go back home. But those who do face arrest, torture, rape & killings.
⁰No country should forcibly return refugees to #Syria.https://t.co/ndkETk8mPWpic.twitter.com/ZSr10HWMUn

— Aya Majzoub (@Aya_Majzoub) October 20, 2021

‘Burns on his body’

In September 2020, Abdul, a 39-year-old man from Deraa, returned from Ramtha in Jordan after he heard the war was over and wanted to reclaim his home.

He told HRW on his way to visit the capital, he was arrested at a checkpoint and taken to military intelligence detention centres in Sweida and Damascus where he was tortured and deprived of sufficient food and water.

“Somebody must have told the army that we were back,” Mona told HRW, saying her husband was arrested and jailed for nine months.

Refugees interviewed told HRW they wanted to return because of a lack of job opportunities and access to healthcare, their interest in reclaiming their homes and property, and because they believed it was safe.

The security concerns compound other woes for war-torn Syria.

“Widespread property rights violations and other economic hardships also make a sustainable return impossible for many,” Nadia Hardman, HRW’s refugee and migrant rights researcher, said.

The devaluation of the Syrian pound and price rises have plunged millions into poverty.

‘Ensure their security’

The UN estimated 13 million Syrians across the country need humanitarian aid, while hundreds of thousands across the country’s north are plagued by a crippling water crisis.

In a two-day visit to Syria last week, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi discussed with Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad and other officials the importance of addressing the treatment of refugees upon their return.

“We are engaging with the government to highlight refugees’ concerns such as their safety, property rights and livelihoods.”

The Syrian government in Damascus and key ally Russia have urged refugee returns to government-held areas in the country. In late 2020, Damascus hosted a refugee returns conference, which Lebanon and Jordan attended.

“The fact that the armed conflict diminished in large parts of the country is besides the point,” HRW’s Executive Director Ken Roth said at the news conference of the report’s launch.

“The main targeted threat to returning refugees remains fully operational and is running at full speed. The multiple agencies that pray on Syrians are still running.”

Syria’s war has killed about 500,000 people during the past 10 years. It started with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, and later turned into a complex battlefield involving international armies, local militias, and foreign fighters.