SYRIA Beirut and the impossible mission to repatriate Syrian refugees

The economic and human burden of the displaced Syrians in Lebanon has become unbearable. The government is doing everything possible to identify and repatriate around two million refugees. An unresolved issue that risks endangering the demographic balance of the country of cedars. However, those who fled Assad oppose the prospect of return and do not believe in the guarantees currently offered to them.

Beirut () – For weeks Syrian refugees in Lebanon have been living in fear of being repatriated. “The honeymoon is over” says Mahmoud, worried because in a few days he will have to regularize his documents at the General Security offices and he does not hide his fear of being arbitrarily expelled from the country.

In an attempt to control the presence and movement of Syrian war refugees – more than two million and almost half of the total population of 4.5 million Lebanese – the Interior Ministry has recently ordered a census of the nearly 4,000 reception centers that house them. These “camps” range from a few tents to authentic canvas cities, such as Arsal, in Bekah, where there are about 80,000 Syrians in a local population of 20,000.

At the same time, taking advantage of the diplomatic thaw between Syria and the Arab world, a recently created ministerial commission is called upon to enter into an official dialogue with the Syrian regime. And it will aim to complete the repatriation of this huge population of displaced persons whose burden is becoming unbearable and which Syria itself, for various reasons, “does not want.”

This effort to control the Syrian presence is accompanied by a political and media campaign that emphasizes its economic, demographic and security weight. In addition, they represent a danger to the confessional balance between Christians and Muslims in the event that they are naturalized, taking into account that 90% of the displaced Syrians are Sunnis, and that they are also constantly growing thanks to their very high fertility rate (around of 220,000 births since 2011).

The awareness, albeit belated, of the Lebanese authorities is accompanied by a campaign of xenophobia in the media, and it is not known which of the two came first. The truth is that public opinion is increasingly frustrated by the increase in crimes and offenses committed by Syrians (one third of the prison population is Syrian). In addition, the help they receive from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and a large number of foreign NGOs makes them seem “privileged” compared to poor Lebanese, who are frustrated by the illegal competition they face they face in the labor market.

At the same time, winds of terror are blowing, especially in Christian circles, at the idea that this human tide may include many men who have done military service, and that they become an armed force of mercenaries in any “plan” of substitution or annexation. When civil war broke out in 2011 and the Syrian Spring crackdown began, Lebanon opened its doors to refugees from war zones without restrictions, unlike Turkey and Jordan.

The prospect of Syrians integrating into the Lebanese population is fueled by the UN and EU guidelines which, in order to prevent waves of migration from Lebanon, also actively work through financial aid and subsidies to improve the living conditions of the Syrians. displaced. However, this has triggered a war among the poor in Lebanon. Regardless of the different positions on the matter, it is clear that the repatriation of this human mass poses innumerable political and logistical problems. Having long frozen its relations with the Syrian regime, like other Arab nations, Lebanon is now forced to review this stance. An inevitable step, even if Damascus itself is accused of not wanting the return of the displaced due to the lack of food and basic necessities, the sanctions and the US Caesar Act, which deprives the country of the necessary funds for reconstruction postwar.

In any case, the Syrian refugees themselves are resistant to the idea of ​​returning to Syria, haunted by the idea of ​​ending up in detention or forced to do military service under a regime they consider authoritarian. They denounce the practice of “enforced disappearances”: “Even today, more than 110,000 people are still missing in Syria, the majority at the hands of the Assad regime,” said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor at the Sciences-Po University in France. In any case, the general situation is evolving and Lebanon lives in uncertainty about the final development of events.