Displacement Toll from Lebanon to Syria Reaches 425,000 – Syria Report
▻https://syria-report.com/displacement-toll-from-lebanon-to-syria-reaches-425000
Since the escalation of the Israeli aggression in Lebanon last month, 425,000 people have fled Lebanon to Syria – 72 percent of them Syrian nationals and 28 percent Lebanese nationals – per the latest UNHCR figures. The U.N. had previously estimated that by March 2025 the displacement toll would reach 480,000, meaning the rate of displacement is faster than previously projected.
Of these, 19,859 Syrians and 82 Lebanese had crossed into areas of the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES), as of October 20, the AANES said in a statement on Tuesday. Among the displaced, there were 7,280 men, 6,155 women, and 6,399 children.
Concerning arrivals to the northwest, as of October 16, 80 percent of the 4,000 people that reached the northwest were women and children, according to OCHA. As of Tuesday, 4,900 Syrians displaced by the war had entered through the Aoun Al-Aadat crossing from the AANES areas to areas under the Syrian Interim Government (SIG), the SIG Minister of Economy Abdul Hakim Al-Masri said. Figures by local authorities tend to be higher than U.N. figures.
Authorities’ response
Hundreds of displaced Lebanese families have found shelter in hosting centres supported by UNHCR, while most of the Syrians displaced by the conflict in Lebanon seem to have been left to find accommodation with relatives.
According to UNHCR, 1,015 Lebanese are staying in the Harjalleh hosting centre in the Rural Damascus governorate, 3,275 Lebanese are accommodated in 12 hosting centres and 2 reception centres in the Tartous and Lattakia governorates, and 841 Lebanese are in two hosting centres in Homs and Hama.
Some 8,800 Lebanese families (39,900 individuals) are being hosted in relatives’ homes in the Homs governorate, many of them in Qusayr, near the Lebanese border, according to UNHCR.
Since the escalation of hostilities, around 32,000 displaced have been offered free transportation services “to help them reach Jdaidet Yabous from the crater in Masnaa (Lebanon), and to their final destinations in Syria,” said UNHCR. That crater is the result of an Israeli strike earlier this month that has halted traffic.
Syrian state media has been amplifying the aid distributed by regime allies. On October 19, Russian military personal from the Russian Coordination Center at the Hmeimim base distributed six tons of food supplies to Lebanese families in the Al-Bassit area in the Lattakia countryside, and on October 20 they distributed four tons of humanitarian aid to Lebanese families staying in two shelters in the Lattakia governorate, SANA reported.
The Israeli strike earlier this month on the Beirut-Damascus highway leading to the Masnaa crossing has disrupted trade and smuggling activities, leading to a hike in prices of several commodities in Syria. According to an article published on October 17 by Tishreen newspaper, food market prices have recorded a surge between 15 and 30 percent due to the increase in transportation cost. A trader from Daraa told Tishreen that due to the disruption at Masnaa, trucks have to take longer routes, increasing the costs. (Read our previous update on the impact of hostilities in Lebanon on the Syrian economy.) Syria’s General Directorate of Customs announced on October 14 that due the disruption on the road towards the Masnaa border crossing (called Jdaidet Yabous on the Syrian side), traders based in Damascus who are supposed to use that crossing for customs clearance will be able to shift their operations the Arida and Daboussieh crossings.
The “Inter-Agency Emergency Appeal for the Influx from Lebanon to Syria” – launched earlier this month – has received so far only 3 percent of the USD 324 million required to fund the humanitarian response to displacement in Syria for the next six months, the UNHCR told The Syria Report. Currently, the Syria Humanitarian Response Plan 2024, which is dedicated to the larger humanitarian response effort towards Syria, has only received 27 of the required USD 4.07 billion for this year.
The refugee issue
The massive displacement of people fleeing Israeli attacks in Lebanon might lead in the medium to long term to a legal conundrum of the refugee protection status of thousands of Syrians, given that in theory, refugees that return to their home country are bound to lose their protection claim.
UNHCR considers the “current return movements of Syrians who are escaping the widespread airstrikes in Lebanon as refugee returns taking place under adverse circumstances, that is under duress,” Rula Amin, UNHCR Senior Communications Adviser for the MENA region explained. Asked if Syrian refugees might lose their refugee status, Ms Amin explained that the “inactivation of refugee files based on prolonged absence is part of the standard registration procedures. Given the current situation, the procedure will need to be applied with necessary safeguards and humanity.”
Concerning the possibility of Lebanese seeking asylum in Syria, Ms Amin said that “UNHCR does consider Lebanese nationals fleeing the country as refugees and should be considered eligible to apply for refugee status.”
The sheer number of Syrian fleeing Israeli attacks in Lebanon and returning to Syria has been used by some European leaders as proof that Syria is safe for the return of refugees. At the EU Council meeting on October 17, Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer said that the fact that many refugees are returning to Syria proved that “Syria can be considered safe” and added that “Austria stands by the fact that people can be sent back to Syria and Afghanistan,” Politico reported. Using a more nuanced tone, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said it was “necessary to review the EU Strategy for Syria and to work with all actors, to create the conditions for Syrian refugees to return to their homeland in a voluntary, safe and sustainable way,” Politico reported.
An E.U. diplomat quoted in Politico said that Israel’s invasion of Lebanon had “added momentum” to the push by some E.U. countries to deport Syrians. In recent months, Austria, Czechia, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Malta and Poland have been lobbying for the E.U. to reconsider its security assessment on Syria as a tool to pave the way for refugee return. Yet, the E.U. Council, in its statement after the meeting last week, just noted that the European Council “reaffirms the need to achieve conditions for safe, voluntary and dignified returns of Syrian refugees, as defined by UNHCR.”
In a press conference ahead of the E.U. Council meeting, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, said that there was “concern about the shockwaves that the conflict from the Middle East can send to Europe – imagine, hundreds of thousands of people leaving their houses. Maybe not having houses anymore to go back to, because they have been destroyed.” He described the Middle East as the “epicentre of a migration movement” and said that it was “clear that Member States are worried about that.”
The efforts by certain E.U. countries, like Denmark, to designate certain parts of Syria as safe in order to send Syrian refugees to those areas has recently received legal push back. On October 4, the European Court of Justice ruled that “the designation of a third country as a safe country of origin must cover its entire territory,” adding that E.U. members could not designate “a third country as a safe country of origin for only part of its territory.”
The return file was also on the agenda of the meeting on October 20 between Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad and Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi. President Al-Assad stressed that “securing the requirements for the safe return of Syrian refugees is a priority for the Syrian state, stressing that Syria has made significant progress in the procedures that help in the return, especially in terms of the required legal and legislative environment”, SANA reported. Mr Safadi said that Jordan “is making every effort in the file of the return of Syrian refugees, stressing his country’s support for stability and recovery in Syria for the benefit of the region in general.”