GROWING FEARS THAT REFUGEES WILL BE SENT BACK TO SYRIA
▶ Warning from aid agencies comes as Assad is accused of another chemical weapon attack on his people
International aid groups yesterday warned countries hosting Syrian refugees against forcing them to return and urged a halt to measures that could raise that prospect.
The report by several leading humanitarian organisations – including the Norwegian Refugee Council and Care International – spoke of an alarming trend in which nations in the Middle East and the West are pushing for deportations.
It said the issue has become increasingly prominent on the agenda of host countries despite Syria remaining unsafe, beset by widespread fighting and with no immediate hope of a peace deal.
“Hundreds of thousands of refugees are at risk of being pushed to return to Syria in 2018, despite ongoing violence, bombing and shelling that are endangering the lives of civilians,” the report, Dangerous Ground, said, arguing that measures to send refugees back to their homes in Syria were increasingly prominent.
“As the military situation changed in Syria, and against a backdrop of increased antirefugee rhetoric and policies across the world, governments began in 2017 to openly contemplate the return of refugees to the country,” it said.
The potential return of Syrians was also driven by the territorial gains made by President Bashar Al Assad’s forces against armed opposition groups and ISIL, as well as the establishment of so-called de-escalation areas.
The number of refugees who returned to Syria – which has been racked by a conflict that has killed at least 340,000 people since 2011 – rose to 721,000 last year, from 560,000 the previous year.
But the report said three times as many Syrians were displaced last year and a further 1.5 million people were expected to be forced from their homes this year.
Those numbers come as Assad’s forces seek to regain territory from remaining rebels, aided by Russian air strikes, and while Turkey conducts its own military operation against what it says are terrorists in the majority Kurdish enclave of Afrin in north Syria.
“Now, return would neither be safe nor voluntary for the vast majority who fled the war and the violence,” said NRC
secretary general Jan Egeland. “Currently, even in certain so-called de-escalation areas, we’ve seen bloodshed, targeting of hospitals and schools, and death,” he said of regions that were selected last year for truces intended to pave the way for an end to the war.
It is estimated that 5.5 million Syrians have fled their homeland because of the conflict, which is soon to enter its eighth year.
The report expressed concern over measures being discussed in Europe, including in Denmark and Germany, that could lead to forced returns.
Only 3 per cent of vulnerable Syrian refugees have so far been resettled in wealthy countries. Most remain in countries bordering Syria, including Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, but rhetoric on refugee return has also picked up there.
“In Syria’s neighbouring countries, the push to return refugees has manifested itself in closed borders, deportations and forced or involuntary returns,” the report said.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the head of the Save the Children aid group that co-wrote the report, said that many children risked being sent straight into harm’s way.
“No child should have to return home before it is safe. Right now, many parts of Syria are unsafe for children. Bombs are still falling and basic services like schools and hospitals lie in ruins,” she said.
Action Against Hunger and Danish Refugee Council also contributed to the report.
The findings were released soon after the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five people were treated for suffocation on Sunday after air strikes by the Assad regime on the north-west town of Saraqeb, and that 10 civilians were killed in southern Idlib province.
The rights group quoted residents and medical sources as saying “toxic gas” was used in the attack.
The US last week accused the Syrian regime of using chemical weapons on opposition forces near Damascus.
The Syrian foreign ministry called the allegations lies.
US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis said on Friday his government was concerned sarin gas may have been recently used in Syria.