Lebanon and Turkey have begun to crack down on undocumented Syrian refugees, detaining thousands and deporting hundreds to Syria.
Lebanon and Turkey have begun to crack down on undocumented Syrian refugees, detaining thousands and deporting hundreds to Syria. Activists fear that this could be the beginning of en masse deportations as the economic conditions in both the countries deteriorate and xenophobia rises.
According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, 301 Syrians were deported this May. Lebanon’s officials said that only those who had entered illegally after 24 April had been deported as per a decision taken by the Council of Ministers earlier this year. However, eight Lebanese NGOs have contested the law and called for its annulment. Legal Agenda, one of the eight NGOs, released a position paper and said that deporting Syrians violates Lebanon’s commitment to the principle of non-refoulement under which anyone whose life and freedom might be at risk upon returning to the home country, should not be forcibly returned.
Legal Agenda said that the Lebanese government must give a right to defend Syrians to be deported in the future. It said Syrians should be given a chance to present their case in the courts about why they are unable to go back. Even as war has waned in large parts of Syria, reports of large-scale conscription of returnees and of random arrests have led local and international activists to conclude that Syria is still unsafe to return to.
Lebanon has also just begun to strictly implement its law on the procurement of residency and work permits, adversely impacting the Syrian refugees. While any foreigner is required by law to procure these to stay long-term and work in Lebanon, the officials had always been lenient on Syrians and in practice never sought these papers.
In 1993, Syria and Lebanon signed a bilateral agreement for Economic and Social Cooperation which granted the nationals of both countries freedom of movement, stay and work in each other’s countries. At the beginning of the Syrian crisis, keeping with tradition, Lebanon maintained an open border policy and let the UNHCR register all those who walked in. But as the numbers touched a million in 2015, Lebanon shut its doors. But the Syrians fleeing war and persecution continued to climb the treacherous and porous mountains at the Syria-Lebanon border to find relative safety. The current number of Syrians in Lebanon is estimated to be about 1.5 million.
Lebanon had envisaged that it would be able to limit the numbers if it stopped registering new arrivals and if it made work and residency expensive. Instead, not only did the influx continue, 74% of Syrians in Lebanon could not procure a residency permit because of additional conditions and costs.
The Syrian war, now in its ninth year, turned 6 million people into refugees, a massive chunk of it, about 5 million, landed in Lebanon and Turkey. The presence of the Syrians has, undoubtedly, strained the civic infrastructure in both countries. However, xenophobia has been fed by fear-mongering that Syrians may never leave and steal local jobs. It has made the Turks and the Lebanese resent the Syrian presence.
In the recent push, Turkey detained as many as a thousand Syrians and deported several to Syria. Human Rights Watch, an international NGO, released a report which said that Turkey coerced Syrians into signing forms that claimed that they wished to return to Syria. Turkey, like Lebanon, wants to avoid international condemnation associated with deporting Syrians. To go around the promise to not deport Syrians, Turkish authorities are allegedly getting them to sign these forms.
“Turkish authorities are detaining and coercing Syrians into signing forms saying they want to return to Syria and then forcibly returning them there,” Human Rights Watch said in its report. "Human Rights Watch spoke by phone with four Syrians who are in Syria after being detained and forcibly returned there,” it added. Several others have reportedly been deported to Idlib, bordering Turkey.
Idlib is the only province that has continued to witness active fighting since the territorial decimation of ISIS and expulsion of anti-Assad rebels from other parts of the country. Since April, attacks by Syrian armed forces — backed by Russian air power — have killed over 2,000 people.
According to a report in The Guardian, which quoted a Syrian NGO, 2,600 Syrians have been deported from Turkey over the last two years.
However, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu denied the reports of forcible deportations and said that only those who wanted to voluntarily return have been facilitated by the government to go back.
Over the last few weeks, Turkey has also started a campaign against unregistered Syrians in the capital city of Istanbul. Around a million Syrians are packed in the city, only half of whom are registered. According to Migrant Solidarity Association in Turkey, at least 350,000 others are registered in different Turkish cities. The Turkish authorities have set a deadline of 20 August for Syrians in Istanbul to leave and go to cities they are registered in. All those who entered the country illegally, officials said, would be deported. This has spread fear and panic among the refugees who come to Istanbul to work so they can earn enough money to sustain their families.
The numbers of deported while still low could pick up and quickly unless the international community finds a long-term solution to the Syrian crisis. Neither Turkey nor Lebanon can absorb all of the Syrian refugees indefinitely.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Anchal Vohra was a Fellow at ORF. She writes on contemporary developments in West Asia and on foreign policy.
Read More +
PREV
