Amnesty International slams Lebanese officials over plans to return Syrian refuges

Amnesty International on Friday blasted a decision by Lebanon to start sending Syrian refugees back to their country of origin, warning that the refugees could suffer abuse and persecution in Syria.

"The Lebanese authorities are scaling up the so-called voluntary returns, a plan which has been in place for four years, when it is well established that Syrian refugees in Lebanon are not in a position to take a free and informed decision about their return," an Amnesty report said.

It added that this was because in Lebanon there were "restrictive government policies on movement and residency, rampant discrimination, lack of access to essential services as well as unavailability of objective and updated information about the current human rights situation in Syria".

Syrian refugees who have returned to Syria have faced abuse, arrest, torture, and even execution at the hands of Assad regime authorities and pro-regime militias.

Those suspected of affiliation with the Syrian opposition  are particularly at risk.

"It's an easy out. Reportedly social tensions are rising between Syrian refugees and host communities, and it is a policy of the government to stoke these tensions to deflect from mismanagement."

On the uncertain future Syrian refugees face in Lebanon ⬇ https://t.co/U7vKhYAu7V

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) September 25, 2022

Abbas Ibrahim, the head of Lebanon's General Security, said on Friday that Beirut was waiting for Syria’s response before it begins what he called the "voluntary" repatriation of 1,600 Syrian refugees to their country.

He stressed to local media on Thursday that the return of refugees will only be with their consent.

The General Security agency says that thousands of Syrians have returned in recent years.

Ibrahim on Thursday said that there were in fact over 2 million Syrians in Lebanon, including refugees, contradicting numbers often given by the UN and other humanitarian agencies.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that Lebanon has 865,530 registered Syrian refugees. However some refugees are not registered with the UN.

"The number of Syrians in Lebanon has reached nearly 2,080,000, including the displaced," Ibrahim told visitors at the General Security headquarters, stressing that Lebanon is at a "favourable political moment to work on returning these people to their country".

Concerning the mechanism that will be adopted for the resumption of voluntary return convoys, Ibrahim said: "It is the same that we have adopted since 2017, which has resulted in the return of nearly 485,000.

The next batch will include 1,600 displaced people, and we are awaiting answers from the Syrian authorities to decide on the date of their return."

He pointed to a change in tone by the European Union, saying that illegal migrant journeys via the Mediterranean Sea which has seen dozens of people die has forced the EU to take a different stance.

'They just wanted to escape from their bad lives': Syrian migrant shipwreck drowns the dreams of a better, safer existence https://t.co/F8PfxTBkT5

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) September 29, 2022

Lebanese President Michel Aoun – whose six-year term ends on October 31 – announced on Wednesday that Syrian refugees would begin being sent back at the end of next week, without further clarification.

The government in recent months announced a plan which would see 15,000 refugees per month back to Syria.

The UN has said it will not participate in the deportation scheme, saying Syria is not safe for returns. Human rights organisations have also said that any plan that deports Syrian refugees would be unlawful and amount to refoulment.

The plan has caused division in the Lebanese caretaker cabinet, particularly between the prime minister and the Minister of the Displaced.

Some Lebanese politicians have said that the country cannot continue to host hundreds of thousands of Syrians amid an economic meltdown and an acute energy crisis.

"Amid the country’s [Lebanon’s] spiralling economic crisis, the international community must continue to support more than one million Syrian refugees in Lebanon to prevent a further rise in unsafe returns," the Amnesty report said Friday.