#zaatari

Data et nouvelles technologies, la face cachée du contrôle des mobilités

https://i.imgur.com/UarOZ6M.png

Dans un rapport de juillet 2020, l’Agence européenne pour la gestion opérationnelle des systèmes d’information à grande échelle (#EU-Lisa) présente l’intelligence artificielle (IA) comme l’une des « technologies prioritaires » à développer. Le rapport souligne les avantages de l’IA en matière migratoire et aux frontières, grâce, entre autres, à la technologie de #reconnaissance_faciale.

L’intelligence artificielle est de plus en plus privilégiée par les acteurs publics, les institutions de l’UE et les acteurs privés, mais aussi par le #HCR et l’#OIM. Les agences de l’UE, comme Frontex ou EU-Lisa, ont été particulièrement actives dans l’#expérimentation des nouvelles technologies, brouillant parfois la distinction entre essais et mise en oeuvre. En plus des outils traditionnels de surveillance, une panoplie de technologies est désormais déployée aux frontières de l’Europe et au-delà, qu’il s’agisse de l’ajout de nouvelles #bases_de_données, de technologies financières innovantes, ou plus simplement de la récupération par les #GAFAM des données laissées volontairement ou pas par les migrant·e·s et réfugié∙e∙s durant le parcours migratoire.

La pandémie #Covid-19 est arrivée à point nommé pour dynamiser les orientations déjà prises, en permettant de tester ou de généraliser des technologies utilisées pour le contrôle des mobilités sans que l’ensemble des droits des exilé·e·s ne soit pris en considération. L’OIM, par exemple, a mis à disposition des Etats sa #Matrice_de_suivi_des_déplacements (#DTM) durant cette période afin de contrôler les « flux migratoires ». De nouvelles technologies au service de vieilles obsessions…

▻http://www.migreurop.org/article3021.html

Pour télécharger le rapport :
www.migreurop.org/IMG/pdf/note_12_fr.pdf

ping @karine4 @rhoumour @_kg_ @i_s_

La #technopolice aux frontières

Comment le #business de la #sécurité et de la #surveillance au sein de l’#Union_européenne, en plus de bafouer des #droits_fondamentaux, utilise les personnes exilées comme #laboratoire de recherche, et ce sur des #fonds_publics européens.

On a beaucoup parlé ici ces derniers mois de surveillance des manifestations ou de surveillance de l’espace public dans nos villes, mais la technopolice est avant tout déployée aux #frontières – et notamment chez nous, aux frontières de la « forteresse Europe ». Ces #dispositifs_technopoliciers sont financés, soutenus et expérimentés par l’Union européenne pour les frontières de l’UE d’abord, et ensuite vendus. Cette surveillance des frontières représente un #marché colossal et profite grandement de l’échelle communautaire et de ses programmes de #recherche_et_développement (#R&D) comme #Horizon_2020.

#Roborder – des essaims de #drones_autonomes aux frontières

C’est le cas du projet Roborder – un « jeu de mots » entre robot et border, frontière en anglais. Débuté en 2017, il prévoit de surveiller les frontières par des essaims de #drones autonomes, fonctionnant et patrouillant ensemble. L’#intelligence_artificielle de ces drones leur permettrait de reconnaître les humains et de distinguer si ces derniers commettent des infractions (comme celui de passer une frontière ?) et leur dangerosité pour ensuite prévenir la #police_aux_frontières. Ces drones peuvent se mouvoir dans les airs, sous l’eau, sur l’eau et dans des engins au sol. Dotés de multiples capteurs, en plus de la détection d’activités criminelles, ces drones seraient destinés à repérer des “#radio-fréquences non fiables”, c’est-à-dire à écouter les #communications et également à mesurer la #pollution_marine.
Pour l’instant, ces essaims de drones autonomes ne seraient pas pourvus d’armes. Roborder est actuellement expérimenté en #Grèce, au #Portugal et en #Hongrie.

https://roborder.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Architecture.png

Un #financement européen pour des usages « civils »

Ce projet est financé à hauteur de 8 millions d’euros par le programme Horizon 2020 (subventionné lui-même par la #Cordis, organe de R&D de la Commission européenne). Horizon 2020 représente 50% du financement public total pour la recherche en sécurité de l’UE. Roborder est coordonné par le centre de recherches et technologie de #Hellas (le #CERTH), en Grèce et comme le montre l’association #Homo_Digitalis le nombre de projets Horizon 2020 ne fait qu’augmenter en Grèce. En plus du CERTH grec s’ajoutent environ 25 participants venus de tous les pays de l’UE (où on retrouve les services de police d’#Irlande_du_Nord, le ministère de la défense grecque, ou encore des entreprises de drones allemandes, etc.).

L’une des conditions pour le financement de projets de ce genre par Horizon 2020 est que les technologies développées restent dans l’utilisation civile, et ne puissent pas servir à des fins militaires. Cette affirmation pourrait ressembler à un garde-fou, mais en réalité la distinction entre usage civil et militaire est loin d’être clairement établie. Comme le montre Stephen Graham, très souvent les #technologies, à la base militaires, sont réinjectées dans la sécurité, particulièrement aux frontières où la migration est criminalisée. Et cette porosité entre la sécurité et le #militaire est induite par la nécessité de trouver des débouchés pour rentabiliser la #recherche_militaire. C’est ce qu’on peut observer avec les drones ou bien le gaz lacrymogène. Ici, il est plutôt question d’une logique inverse : potentiellement le passage d’un usage dit “civil” de la #sécurité_intérieure à une application militaire, à travers des ventes futures de ces dispositifs. Mais on peut aussi considérer la surveillance, la détection de personnes et la #répression_aux_frontières comme une matérialisation de la #militarisation de l’Europe à ses frontières. Dans ce cas-là, Roborder serait un projet à fins militaires.

De plus, dans les faits, comme le montre The Intercept (►https://theintercept.com/2019/05/11/drones-artificial-intelligence-europe-roborder), une fois le projet terminé celui-ci est vendu. Sans qu’on sache trop à qui. Et, toujours selon le journal, beaucoup sont déjà intéressés par Roborder.

#IborderCtrl – détection d’#émotions aux frontières

Si les essaims de drones sont impressionnants, il existe d’autres projets dans la même veine. On peut citer notamment le projet qui a pour nom IborderCtrl, testé en Grèce, Hongrie et #Lettonie.

Il consiste notamment en de l’#analyse_d’émotions (à côté d’autres projets de #reconnaissances_biométriques) : les personnes désirant passer une frontière doivent se soumettre à des questions et voient leur #visage passer au crible d’un #algorithme qui déterminera si elles mentent ou non. Le projet prétend « accélérer le #contrôle_aux_frontières » : si le #détecteur_de_mensonges estime qu’une personne dit la vérité, un code lui est donné pour passer le contrôle facilement ; si l’algorithme considère qu’une personne ment, elle est envoyée dans une seconde file, vers des gardes-frontières qui lui feront passer un #interrogatoire. L’analyse d’émotions prétend reposer sur un examen de « 38 #micro-mouvements du visage » comme l’angle de la tête ou le mouvement des yeux. Un spectacle de gadgets pseudoscientifiques qui permet surtout de donner l’apparence de la #neutralité_technologique à des politiques d’#exclusion et de #déshumanisation.

Ce projet a également été financé par Horizon 2020 à hauteur de 4,5 millions d’euros. S’il semble aujourd’hui avoir été arrêté, l’eurodéputé allemand Patrick Breyer a saisi la Cour de justice de l’Union Européenne pour obtenir plus d’informations sur ce projet, ce qui lui a été refusé pour… atteinte au #secret_commercial. Ici encore, on voit que le champ “civil” et non “militaire” du projet est loin de représenter un garde-fou.

Conclusion

Ainsi, l’Union européenne participe activement au puissant marché de la surveillance et de la répression. Ici, les frontières et les personnes exilées sont utilisées comme des ressources de laboratoire. Dans une optique de militarisation toujours plus forte des frontières de la forteresse Europe et d’une recherche de profit et de développement des entreprises et centres de recherche européens. Les frontières constituent un nouveau marché et une nouvelle manne financière de la technopolice.

Les chiffres montrent par ailleurs l’explosion du budget de l’agence européenne #Frontex (de 137 millions d’euros en 2015 à 322 millions d’euros en 2020, chiffres de la Cour des comptes européenne) et une automatisation toujours plus grande de la surveillance des frontières. Et parallèlement, le ratio entre le nombre de personnes qui tentent de franchir la Méditerranée et le nombre de celles qui y laissent la vie ne fait qu’augmenter. Cette automatisation de la surveillance aux frontières n’est donc qu’une nouvelle façon pour les autorités européennes d’accentuer le drame qui continue de se jouer en Méditerranée, pour une “efficacité” qui finalement ne profite qu’aux industries de la surveillance.

Dans nos rues comme à nos frontières nous devons refuser la Technopolice et la combattre pied à pied !

▻https://technopolice.fr/blog/la-technopolice-aux-frontieres

Artificial Intelligence - based capabilities for European Border and Coast Guard

In 2019, Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, commissioned #RAND Europe to carry out an Artificial intelligence (AI) research study.

The purpose of the study was to provide an overview of the main opportunities, challenges and requirements for the adoption of AI-based capabilities in border managament. Frontex’s intent was also to find synergies with ongoing AI studies and initiatives in the EU and contribute to a Europe-wide AI landscape by adding the border security dimension.

Some of the analysed technologies included automated border control, object recognition to detect suspicious vehicles or cargo and the use of geospatial data analytics for operational awareness and threat detection.

As part of the study, RAND provided Frontex in 2020 with a comprehensive report and an executive summary with conclusions and recommendations.

The findings will support Frontex in shaping the future landscape of AI-based capabilities for Integrated Border Management, including AI-related research and innovation projects which could be initiated by Frontex (e.g. under #EU_Innovation_Hub) or recommended to be conducted under the EU Research and Innovation Programme (#Horizon_Europe).

▻https://frontex.europa.eu/media-centre/news/news-release/artificial-intelligence-based-capabilities-for-european-border-and-co

Pour les réfugiés, la #biométrie tout au long du chemin

Par-delà les murs qui poussent aux frontières du monde depuis les années 1990, les réfugiés, migrants et demandeurs d’asile sont de plus en plus confrontés à l’extension des bases de #données_biométriques. Un « #mur_virtuel » s’étend ainsi à l’extérieur, aux frontières et à l’intérieur de l’espace Schengen, construit autour de programmes et de #bases_de_données.

Des réfugiés qui paient avec leurs #iris, des migrants identifiés par leurs #empreintes_digitales, des capteurs de #reconnaissance_faciale, mais aussi d’#émotions… Réunis sous la bannière de la « #frontière_intelligente », ces #dispositifs_technologiques, reposant sur l’#anticipation, l’#identification et l’#automatisation du franchissement de la #frontière grâce aux bases de données biométriques, ont pour but de trier les voyageurs, facilitant le parcours des uns et bloquant celui des autres.

L’Union européenne dispose ainsi d’une batterie de bases de données qui viennent compléter les contrôles aux frontières. Depuis 2011, une agence dédiée, l’#Agence_européenne_pour_la_gestion_opérationnelle_des_systèmes_d’information_à_grande_échelle, l’#EU-Lisa, a pour but d’élaborer et de développer, en lien avec des entreprises privées, le suivi des demandeurs d’asile.

Elle gère ainsi plusieurs bases compilant des #données_biométriques. L’une d’elles, le « #Entry_and_Exit_System » (#EES), sera déployée en 2022, pour un coût évalué à 480 millions d’euros. L’EES a pour mission de collecter jusqu’à 400 millions de données sur les personnes non européennes franchissant les frontières de l’espace Schengen, afin de contrôler en temps réel les dépassements de durée légale de #visa. En cas de séjour prolongé devenu illégal, l’alerte sera donnée à l’ensemble des polices européennes.

Se brûler les doigts pour ne pas être enregistré

L’EU-Lisa gère également le fichier #Eurodac, qui consigne les empreintes digitales de chacun des demandeurs d’asile de l’Union européenne. Utilisé pour appliquer le #règlement_Dublin III, selon lequel la demande d’asile est déposée et traitée dans le pays européen où le migrant a été enregistré la première fois, il entraîne des stratégies de #résistance.

« On a vu des migrants refuser de donner leurs empreintes à leur arrivée en Grèce, ou même se brûler les doigts pour ne pas être enregistrés dans Eurodac, rappelle Damien Simonneau, chercheur à l’Institut Convergences Migrations du Collège de France. Ils savent que s’ils ont, par exemple, de la famille en Allemagne, mais qu’ils ont été enregistrés en Grèce, ils seront renvoyés en Grèce pour que leur demande y soit traitée, ce qui a des conséquences énormes sur leur vie. » La procédure d’instruction dure en effet de 12 à 18 mois en moyenne.

La collecte de données biométriques jalonne ainsi les parcours migratoires, des pays de départs jusqu’aux déplacements au sein de l’Union européenne, dans un but de limitation et de #contrôle. Pour lutter contre « la criminalité transfrontalière » et « l’immigration clandestine », le système de surveillance des zones frontières #Eurosur permet, via un partage d’informations en temps réel, d’intercepter avant leur arrivée les personnes tentant d’atteindre l’Union européenne.

Des contrôles dans les pays de départ

Pour le Transnational Institute, auteur avec le think tank Stop Wapenhandel et le Centre Delàs de plusieurs études sur les frontières, l’utilisation de ces bases de données témoigne d’une stratégie claire de la part de l’Union européenne. « Un des objectifs de l’expansion des #frontières_virtuelles, écrivent-ils ainsi dans le rapport Building Walls (►https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/building_walls_-_full_report_-_english.pdf), paru en 2018, est d’intercepter les réfugiés et les migrants avant même qu’ils n’atteignent les frontières européennes, pour ne pas avoir à traiter avec eux. »

Si ces techniques permettent de pré-trier les demandes pour fluidifier le passage des frontières, en accélérant les déplacements autorisés, elles peuvent également, selon Damien Simonneau, avoir des effets pervers. « L’utilisation de ces mécanismes repose sur l’idée que la #technologie est un facilitateur, et il est vrai que l’#autonomisation de certaines démarches peut faciliter les déplacements de personnes autorisées à franchir les frontières, expose-t-il. Mais les technologies sont faillibles, et peuvent produire des #discriminations. »

Ces #techniques_virtuelles, aux conséquences bien réelles, bouleversent ainsi le rapport à la frontière et les parcours migratoires. « Le migrant est confronté à de multiples points "frontière", disséminés un peu partout, analyse Damien Simonneau. Cela crée des #obstacles supplémentaires aux parcours migratoires : le contrôle n’est quasiment plus lié au franchissement d’une frontière nationale, il est déterritorialisé et peut se produire n’importe où, en amont comme en aval de la frontière de l’État. »

Ainsi, la « politique d’#externalisation de l’Union européenne » permet au contrôle migratoire de s’exercer dans les pays de départ. Le programme européen « #SIV » collecte par exemple dès leur formulation dans les #consulats les données biométriques liées aux #demandes_de_visas.

Plus encore, l’Union européenne délègue une partie de la gestion de ses frontières à d’autres pays : « Dans certains États du Sahel, explique Damien Simonneau, l’aide humanitaire et de développement est conditionnée à l’amélioration des contrôles aux frontières. »

Un programme de l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM), le programme #MIDAS, financé par l’Union européenne, est ainsi employé par 23 pays, majoritairement en Afrique, mais aussi en Asie et en Amérique. Son but est de « collecter, traiter, stocker et analyser les informations [biométriques et biographiques] des voyageurs en temps réel » pour aider les polices locales à contrôler leurs frontières. Mais selon le réseau Migreurop, ces données peuvent également être transmises aux agences policières européennes. L’UE exerce ainsi un droit de regard, via Frontex, sur le système d’information et d’analyse de données sur la migration, installé à Makalondi au Niger.

Des réfugiés qui paient avec leurs yeux

Un mélange des genres, entre organisations humanitaires et États, entre protection, logistique et surveillance, qui se retrouve également dans les #camps_de_réfugiés. Dans les camps jordaniens de #Zaatari et d’#Azarq, par exemple, près de la frontière syrienne, les réfugiés paient depuis 2016 leurs aliments avec leurs iris.

L’#aide_humanitaire_alimentaire distribuée par le Programme alimentaire mondial (PAM) leur est en effet versée sur un compte relié à leurs données biométriques. Il leur suffit de passer leurs yeux dans un scanner pour régler leurs achats. Une pratique qui facilite grandement la gestion #logistique du camp par le #HCR et le PAM, en permettant la #traçabilité des échanges et en évitant les fraudes et les vols.

Mais selon Léa Macias, anthropologue à l’EHESS, cela a aussi des inconvénients. « Si ce paiement avec les yeux peut rassurer certains réfugiés, dans la mesure où cela les protège contre les vols, développe-t-elle, le procédé est également perçu comme une #violence. Les réfugiés ont bien conscience que personne d’autre au monde, dans une situation normale, ne paie ainsi avec son #corps. »

Le danger de la fuite de données

La chercheuse s’inquiète également du devenir des données ainsi collectées, et se pose la question de l’intérêt des réfugiés dans ce processus. « Les humanitaires sont poussés à utiliser ces nouvelles technologies, expose-t-elle, qui sont vues comme un gage de fiabilité par les bailleurs de fonds. Mais la #technologisation n’est pas toujours dans l’intérêt des réfugiés. En cas de fuite ou de hackage des bases de données, cela les expose même à des dangers. »

Un rapport de Human Rights Watch (HRW) (▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/06/15/un-shared-rohingya-data-without-informed-consent), publié mardi 15 juin, alerte ainsi sur des #transferts_de_données biométriques appartenant à des #Rohingyas réfugiés au Bangladesh. Ces données, collectées par le Haut-commissariat aux réfugiés (HCR) de l’ONU, ont été transmises par le gouvernement du Bangladesh à l’État birman. Si le HCR a réagi (▻https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/press/2021/6/60c85a7b4/news-comment-statement-refugee-registration-data-collection-bangladesh.html) en affirmant que les personnes concernées avaient donné leur accord à ce #transfert_de_données pour préparer un éventuel retour en Birmanie, rien ne permet cependant de garantir qu’ils seront bien reçus si leur nom « bipe » au moment de passer la frontière.

▻https://www.rfi.fr/fr/technologies/20210620-pour-les-r%C3%A9fugi%C3%A9s-la-biom%C3%A9trie-tout-au-long-du-chemin

#smart_borders #tri #catégorisation #déterritorialisation #réfugiés_rohingyas

–---

Sur les doigts brûlés pour ne pas se faire identifier par les empreintes digitales, voir la scène du film Qu’ils reposent en paix de Sylvain George, dont j’ai fait une brève recension :

Instant tragique : ce qu’un migrant appelle la « prière ». Ce moment collectif où les migrants tentent de faire disparaître leurs empreintes digitales. Étape symbolique où ils se défont de leur propre identité.

https://visionscarto.net/local/cache-vignettes/L1024xH813/14922758178_d13a-8bda4.jpg?1508946675#.jpg

►https://visionscarto.net/a-calais-l-etat-ne-peut-dissoudre

#merci, @cdb_77 !
combien de vies il faut pour explorer tout ça ?…

voir aussi le film Bienvenue au Refugistan qui montre bien l’application de ce genre d’innovations dans les camps de réfugiés :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/502311

#cartoexperiment

Inspired by the historical storyboard of the #Bayeux_Tapestry, Refugee Stories is a series of embroidery panels that follow the journey of the Syrian refugees into Europe. The monumental scale of the crisis, the second largest mass migration in history, is documented in various points along the refugees’ journey out of Syria and into Western Europe. Each point along their journey was affected by geography: whether by sea or land, pastoral farmland or war torn desert. Using international news stories, Google Earth, and numerical data from the United Nations, each panel pieces together the journey in one schematic map.

#réfugiés #réfugiés_syriens #home #parcours_migratoire #itinéraire_migratoire #Zaatari #camp_de_réfugiés #Méditerranée #mer_Egée #route_des_balkans #Bulgarie #Hongrie #Autriche #Macédoine #Allemagne #Tempelhof #Alep #tissus #broderie

Jordan Opens World’s Largest Solar Park for Refugee Camp

Jordan on Monday inaugurated the largest solar park to operate in a refugee facility, aiming to improve the lives of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees at the Zaatari desert camp.

The 4,000 solar panels with a total capacity of 12.9 megawatts are designed to provide 14 hours of electricity a day to Zaatari’s 80,000 inhabitants, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The project was financed by Germany at a cost of 15 million euros ($17.5 million).

http://www.theglobepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/file6xjj1fl4dmg1ma6y1ol1.jpg

Not Without Dignity: Views of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon on Displacement, Conditions of Return, and Coexistence

Discussions about a future return of refugees and coexistence among groups currently at war in Syria must begin now, even in the face of ongoing violence and displacement. This report, based on interviews with refugees, makes it clear that the restoration of dignity will be important to creating the necessary conditions for return and peaceful coexistence — and building a stable post-war Syria one day.

https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/styles/publication_thumbnail/public/ICTJ_Syria_Dignity_cover_100.jpg?itok=9XjVDx6M#.jpg

New ICTJ Study: Syrian Refugees in Lebanon See Security, Restoration of Dignity as Key Conditions for Return

A new report from the International Center for Transitional Justice argues that discussions about a future return of refugees and coexistence among groups currently at war in Syria must begin now, even in the face of ongoing violence and displacement. The report makes it clear that the restoration of refugees’ sense of dignity will be important to creating the necessary conditions for return and peaceful coexistence — and building a stable post-war Syria one day.

▻https://www.ictj.org/news/study-syrian-refugees-lebanon-conditions-return

Why It’s Far Too Early to Talk of Return for Syrian Refugees

While several states might want a quick solution to the plight of Syrian refugees, returns are not a realistic option until the conflict comes to an end, writes Chatham House Associate Fellow Jeff Crisp.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2017/08/11/why-its-far-too-early-to-talk-of-return-for-syrian-refugees-2

We Must Start the Conversation About Return of Syrian Refugees Now

If millions of displaced Syrians are to go home one day, we need to understand refugees’ conditions for returning, attitudes to justice and the possibility of coexistence, say the authors of an International Center for Transitional Justice study of refugees in Lebanon.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2017/06/21/we-must-start-the-conversation-about-return-of-syrian-refugees-now

Refugees dread a forced return to Syria

Host countries have a moral responsibility not to send these vulnerable souls back to a broken state where an emboldened Al Assad awaits them

http://gulfnews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2084957.1504534374!/image/241250051.jpg

Nowhere Left to Run: Refugee Evictions in Lebanon in Shadow of Return

Lebanon wants to evict 12,000 refugees who live near an air base where foreign military assistance is delivered. The evictions, which began in spring and recently resumed after a short respite, have left refugees more vulnerable amid rising demands they return to Syria.

https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20170928122830/62152a92-63df-425b-9d0d-749e8a3fb40e.jpg?w=640&fit=max&q=60&dpr=2#.jpg

Witness: Syrians Thrust Back into War

Refugees in Jordan Suffer Collective Expulsions to Syria

https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/styles/cover/public/multimedia_images_2017/201710middleeat_jordan_cover.jpg?itok=uz-AVVwH#.jpg

Syrian Refugees Return From Lebanon Only to Flee War Yet Again

Refugees who returned to Syria from Lebanon under cease-fire deals this summer have been displaced again by fighting. Those who stayed behind are pressing for international guarantees of safety on return, as Lebanese officials explore ways to get more refugees to leave.

https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20171011103816/AFP_QJ2WV.jpg?w=640&fit=max&q=60&dpr=2#.jpg

Germany Is Preparing to Send Refugees Back to Syria

Syria’s war isn’t over, but a growing number of German policymakers are trying to revoke asylum and send Syrians back home — against their will, if necessary.

▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/06/germany-is-preparing-to-send-refugees-back-to-syria
#Allemagne

Syrian refugees in Turkey reluctant to return home

Despite the introduction of de-escalation zones in parts of Syria, many refugees who fled to Turkey are unsure about returning home.

▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/syrian-refugees-turkey-reluctant-return-home-171229110616629.html

Syria’s war: Some refugees returning home

Some Syrian families are choosing to leave the displacement camps and return to their homes, despite the heavy damage their villages have sustained.

A temporary de-escalation ceasefire has provided some relief from the fighting, but there seems to be no diplomatic solution, despite several rounds of talks.

▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/syrias-war-refugees-returning-home-171230161011179.html

80% of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon Want to Go Home: ICRC

80 percent of Syrian refugees in Lebanon want to return home
600,000 have already returned
President Aoun said Lebanon’s request for refugees to return will be for their benefit
Lebanon has hosted one of largest refugee populations per capita

▻https://www.albawaba.com/news/80-syrian-refugees-lebanon-want-go-home-icrc-1070964

Aid groups warn against forcibly returning Syrian refugees

The number of refugees who returned to Syria rose to 721,000 in 2017, but a further 1.5 million people are expected to be forced from their homes in 2018.

▻https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2018/2/5/aid-groups-warn-against-forcibly-returning-syrian-refugees

Aid Groups Fear 2018 Could Become Year of Migrant Repatriations

“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 aid agencies said in the report entitled Dangerous Ground.

▻https://www.voanews.com/a/aid-groups-fear-2018-could-be-year-of-migrant-repatriations/4239382.html

The Real Reasons Why Syrians Return to Syria

A small number of Syrian refugees are returning home despite the violence in the country. New research among returnees shows that most were pushed home by the harsh living conditions in neighboring countries, and did not find safety or dignity upon return.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2018/03/06/the-real-reasons-why-syrians-return-to-syria

How Syrian Refugees in Turkey Define Safe Returns

As host countries increasingly discuss the future of refugees and the possibility of returns, a new study from global social enterprise Seefar found that Syrians in Turkey share vastly different perspectives on the necessary conditions for return.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2018/03/15/how-syrian-refugees-in-turkey-define-safe-returns-2?platform=hootsuite
#Turquie

Calls to Begin Returning Refugees to Syria Must Be Resisted

As countries hosting Syrian refugees grow weary of the continuing war, talk is growing about reconstruction and the refugees’ return. This is both premature and dangerous.

▻https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/calls-begin-returning-refugees-syria-must-be-resisted

Dangerous Exit: Who Controls How Syrians in Lebanon Go Home

AS HALIMA clambered into a truck leaving Lebanon in late June, she resolved that if the men driving the vehicle were arrested at the Syrian border, she would get out and walk back to her village on her own. The 66-year-old grandmother had not seen the son and daughter she left behind in Syria for five years. Wearing an embroidered black dress and a traditional headdress, her crinkled eyes shone with determination. “I’m coming back to my land,” she said.

Having begged her not to leave, Halima’s two daughters staying in Lebanon wept on her shoulders. “We’re afraid she won’t come back,” 42-year-old Sherifa said, as her voice cracked. Sherifa cannot follow her mother to Syria; her eldest son, who has single-handedly kept the family afloat with odd jobs because of his father’s disability, would be sent to war.

Huddled in groups at the checkpoint in northeast Lebanon, other families also said their goodbyes. A teenage girl knelt on the dirt road, refusing to let go of her 19-year-old brother’s legs. Their mother, Nawal, held her as he left for a truck to the border. “I don’t know how he will live on his own in Syria. Only God knows what will happen to him,” Nawal said. “I didn’t think he would actually leave. It all happened very fast.”

A few months earlier, 3,000 Syrians in the Lebanese border town of Arsal had registered their names with Syrian and Lebanese intelligence agencies to return to their villages just over the mountains in Syria’s Qalamoun region. When the first group of several hundred people was approved to leave on June 28, many families were separated, as some members either decided not to register or were not approved by Syrian authorities.

“We need a political solution for these people to go back, but the politics doesn’t start here in Lebanon,” a Lebanese intelligence agent said, as a scuffle broke out that scorching June morning. A Syrian man lunged at Khaled Abdel Aziz, a real estate businessman who had been put in charge of signing up fellow refugees to return. Abdel Aziz sweated in his suit as he dashed between television interviews, repeating that Syrians had a country of their own to go back to. “You’re protecting the army, not protecting yourself,” the man yelled, before being pulled away.

The TV cameras rolled as dozens of trucks and tractors piled high with timber, water tanks and chicken coops were checked off a list by Lebanese intelligence agents and headed with an army escort to the Syrian border. A line of TV reporters announced to their Lebanese viewers that these refugees were going home.

The next day, on the other side of Arsal, a small group of refugees held a sit-in, to much less fanfare. “We’re asking for return with dignity,” one banner read, “with guarantees from the international community and the U.N.”

“We’re not against the return, but we want conditions, guarantees,” said Khaled Raad, one of the organizers. His refugee committee has been petitioning the U.N. and sympathetic Lebanese politicians for international protection for returning Syrians for a year. “I mean, this is not like taking a cup of tea or coffee to say, after seven years, go ahead and return to your houses. It’s not an easy thing.”

“WE NEED A POLITICAL SOLUTION FOR THESE PEOPLE TO GO BACK, BUT THE POLITICS DOESN’T START HERE IN LEBANON.”

By then, Halima had arrived back in Syria. Apart from some tractors breaking down en route, they had no problem crossing the border. Halima went to stay with her son while she waited to hear about the situation in her hometown, the mountaintop village of Fleeta. Her granddaughters had grown up quickly while she was in Lebanon, and she loved spending time with them in the neighboring town.

But as more of their friends and relatives returned to Fleeta, with subsequent groups departing Arsal in July, word came to the family of empty homes and little power, water or work in the Syrian village. Sherifa received messages from relatives who had returned to Fleeta but now wanted to escape again. With no easy way to come back to Lebanon legally, they planned to smuggle themselves back across the border.

Without her mother, and with bad news from Fleeta making it less likely she would ever return to Syria, Sherifa became increasingly desperate. Her husband, who is unable to work for health reasons, sunk into depression. “By God, dying is better than living,” Sherifa said. “I seek refuge in God from this return.”

LONGING FOR HOME, AFRAID TO RETURN
RETURNING TO SYRIA during this eighth year of conflict is both an excruciating personal decision and a political calculation: by refugees, the government in Syria, and other nations with a stake in the war. As the government recaptures more territory from opposition groups, and fighting quells in certain areas, some refugees are considering returning, while others are terrified of the increasing pressure to go back. After Lebanon began organizing small group returns this year, including from Arsal, these dilemmas became more urgent.

To return is to take a political gamble: Refugees must weigh the risks of staying against the risks of going. They try to figure out who can be trusted to tell them the truth. They gather snippets of information from their cities, towns and villages about what happens to people who return. They struggle to decipher the intentions of the mercurial and multi-layered Syrian authorities and their foreign allies.

Some of the broader dangers are well-known: an estimated half a million people killed in Syria’s war, including thousands dead this year; some one million people forced to leave their homes this year alone; a third of all houses and half of all schools and hospitals damaged or destroyed; in government-controlled areas, mandatory conscription into battle for men under 43, fear of arrest and torture, and the difficulties of reintegrating into a society and economy fractured by war.

Until now, few refugees have considered this a risk worth taking. In 2017, the U.N. said 77,300 refugees went back independently to Syria, out of 5.6 million who had fled the country. The vast majority of Syrian refugees have consistently told U.N. and independent surveys they hoped to return home one day, but do not yet feel safe to do so.

There are also risks to staying. More than 80 percent of Syrian refugees remain in three neighboring countries: Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. There, they face soaring poverty, years out of work or school, lack of official documents, risk of arrest and, above all, an increasing public clamoring for Syrians to be sent back.

In Lebanon, where at least 1.5 million Syrians have sought refuge – increasing the country’s population by a quarter – the pressure to leave is the most intense. Few Syrians have legal status, even fewer can work. Many towns have imposed curfews or carried out mass evictions. At the U.N. General Assembly last year, Lebanon’s president Michel Aoun insisted Syrians must return, voluntarily or not. “The claim that they will not be safe should they return to their country is an unacceptable pretext,” he told world leaders.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2018/08/08/dangerous-exit-who-controls-how-syrians-in-lebanon-go-home
#Liban

Turkish minister: 255,300 Syrian refugees have returned home

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Sunday that 255,300 Syrian refugees have returned home over the past two years, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

“Some 160,000 of them returned to the Euphrates Shield region after Turkey brought peace there,” added Soylu, speaking to reporters in the southern province of Hatay bordering Syria.

Turkey carried out Operation Euphrates Shield between August 2016 and March 2017 to eliminate the terrorist threat along the border in the northern Syrian regions of Jarabulus, Al-Rai, Al-Bab and Azaz with the help of the Free Syrian Army.

Expressing concern about a possible operation in the Idlib region of Syria by regime forces, the minister underlined that Turkey would not be responsible for a wave of migration in the event of an offensive.

Soylu also noted that an average of 6,800 irregular migrants a day used to enter Greece from western Turkey in 2015 and that now it has been reduced to 79.

▻https://www.turkishminute.com/2018/09/09/turkish-minister-255300-syrian-refugees-have-returned-home

The fate of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Between forced displacement and forced return

Recent news reports have surfaced on a possible United States-Russia deal to arrange for the return of refugees to Syria—reports that coincided both with the announcement that thousands of Syrians have died in regime prisons, and with one of the worst massacres in the conflict, perpetrated by ISIS in the city of Swaida. The US-Russia deal has been welcomed by Lebanese politicians, particularly those who have been scheming to repatriate Syrians for years now. But, unsurprisingly, the absence of a clear and coherent strategy for repatriation by the Lebanese government puts Syrian refugees at grave risk.

In June, UNHCR interviewed Syrian refugees in Arsal who had expressed their willingness to go back to Syria in order to verify that they had the documentation needed for return and to ensure they were fully aware of the conditions in their home country. In response, caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil accused the agency of impeding refugees’ free return and ordered a freeze on the renewal of agency staff residency permits.

This tug of war raises two main questions: What are the conditions in Lebanon that are pushing refugees toward returning to Syria while the conflict is ongoing and dangers persist? And what are the obstacles preventing some Syrians from returning freely to their homes?

Conditions for Syrians in Lebanon

Syrians began fleeing to Lebanon as early as 2011, but the Lebanese government failed to produce a single policy response until 2014, leading to ad-hoc practices by donors and host communities.

By the end of 2014, the government began introducing policies to “reduce the number of displaced Syrians,” including closing the borders and requiring Syrians to either register with UNHCR and pledge not to work, or to secure a Lebanese sponsor to remain legally in the country and pay a $200 residency permit fee every six months. In May 2015, the government directed UNHCR to stop registering refugees. These conditions put many Syrians in a precarious position: without documentation, vulnerable to arrest and detention, and with limited mobility. Municipalities have been impeding freedom of movement as well, by imposing curfews on Syrians and even expelling them from their towns.

In addition to the difficulties imposed by the state, Syrians face discrimination and violence on a day-to-day basis. Refugee settlements have been set on fire, Syrians have been beaten in the streets, and camps are regularly raided by the Lebanese army. All the while, Lebanese politicians foster and fuel the hatred of Syrians, blaming them for the country’s miseries and painting them as existential and security threats.

Despite the polarization among Lebanese politicians regarding the situation in Syria, there is a consensus that the Syrian refugees are a burden that Lebanon cannot bear. Politicians across the board have been advocating for the immediate repatriation of refugees, and state officials are beginning to take action. President Michel Aoun made a statement in May declaring that Lebanon would seek a solution regarding the refugee crisis without taking into account the preferences of the UN or the European Union. This was followed by Bassil’s move, to freeze the residency permits of UNHCR staff, the leading agency (despite its many shortcomings) providing services for, and protecting the interests of, Syrian refugees. While UNHCR maintains that there are no safe zones in Syria as of yet, Lebanon’s General Security has begun facilitating the return of hundreds of refugees from Arsal and nearby towns. This process has been monitored by UNHCR to ensure that the returns are voluntary. Hezbollah has also established centers to organize the return of Syrians to their homes in collaboration with the Syrian regime.

Syrian regime obstructing refugees’ free return

As the situation for Syrian refugees in Lebanon becomes more and more unbearable, conditions for them back home remain troubling. Since 2012, the Syrian regime has been taking deliberate measures that would effectively make the situation for returning Syrians extremely difficult and dangerous.

Conscription

Syrian males aged 18 to 42 must serve in the Syrian Armed Forces. While exemptions were allowed in the past, a decree issued in 2017 bans exemptions from military service. Refusing to serve in the Syrian army results in imprisonment or an $8,000 fine, which most Syrians are unable to pay, thus risking having their assets seized by the regime.

Property as a weapon of war

Law No. 66 (2012) allowed for the creation of development zones in specified areas across the country. Under the pretense of redeveloping areas currently hosting informal settlements or unauthorized housing, the law is actually being used to expropriate land from residents in areas identified in the decree, which are mostly former opposition strongholds such as Daraya and Ghouta.

Law No. 10 (2018), passed in April, speeds up the above process. This law stipulates the designation of development or reconstruction zones, requiring local authorities to request a list of property owners from public real estate authorities. Those whose have property within these zones but are not registered on the list are notified by local authorities and must present proof of property within 30 days. If they are successful in providing proof, they get shares of the redevelopment project; otherwise, ownership reverts to the local authority in the province, town, or city where the property is located. Human Rights Watch has published a detailed Q&A that explains the law and its implications.

These laws, coupled with systematic destruction of land registries by local authorities, fully equip the regime to dispossess hundreds of thousands of Syrian families. Reports indicate that the regime has already begun reconstruction in areas south of Damascus.

Statements by Syrian officials

Syrian officials have made several public statements that reveal their hostility toward refugees. On August 20, 2017, at the opening ceremony of a conference held by Syria’s foreign ministry, President Bashar al-Assad gave a speech in which he said: “It’s true that we lost the best of our young men as well as our infrastructure, but in return we gained a healthier, more homogeneous society.” On another occasion, Assad stated his belief that some refugees are terrorists.

In September 2017, a video of Issam Zahreddine, a commander in the Syrian Armed Forces, went viral. In the video, Zahreddine threatens refugees against returning, saying: “To everyone who fled Syria to other countries, please do not return. If the government forgives you, we will not. I advise you not to come back.” Zahreddine later clarified that his remarks were meant for rebels and ISIS followers, but that clarification should be taken with a grain of salt given his bloody track record in the war up until his death in October 2017. Along similar lines, leaked information from a meeting of top-ranking army officers just last month reported the following statement by the head of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence administration, General Jamil Al-Hassan: “A Syria with 10 million trustworthy people obedient to the leadership is better than a Syria with 30 million vandals.”

Unknown fate

Considering the unwelcoming policies in Lebanon and the treacherous conditions in Syria, what is the fate of Syrian refugees, specifically those who oppose the Assad regime? Until now, the return championed by Lebanese politicians implies return to a fascist regime that has caused the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War and unapologetically committed countless war crimes. While Lebanese politicians continue to focus on repatriation, they are failing to acknowledge the major barriers preventing Syrians from returning home: the Assad regime and ongoing mass violence.

We cannot speak of safe, dignified, and sustainable returns without demanding justice and accountability. Regime change and trials for those who committed war crimes over the span of the last seven years are a long way off, and all evidence currently points toward the Assad regime retaining power. Any strategy must therefore prioritize the safety of Syrians who are likely to be detained, tortured, and killed for their political views upon return, or simply denied entry to Syria altogether. Lebanese policy makers must take into account that Syrians residing in Lebanon are not a homogenous entity, and some may never be able to return to their homes. Those Syrians should not be forced to choose between a brutal regime that will persecute them and a country that strips away their rights and dignity. It is time for Lebanon to adopt clear policies on asylum, resettlement, and return that ensure the right of all Syrians to lead a safe and dignified life.

▻http://www.executive-magazine.com/economics-policy/the-fate-of-syrian-refugees-in-lebanon

Le retour des réfugiés en Syrie commence à préoccuper la communauté internationale

Lors d’une conférence sur la Syrie à Bruxelles, le retour des réfugiés syriens dans leur pays a été évoqué. Démarrée en 2011, la guerre en Syrie touche à sa fin

La situation en Syrie est loin d’être stabilisée. Les besoins de financement, de nourriture de matériel sont même en constante augmentation. Selon un haut fonctionnaire de l’ONU, un éventuel assaut contre la dernière enclave rebelle pourrait entraîner une « catastrophe humanitaire ». Pourtant, alors que 12 millions de Syriens, soit près de la moitié de la population syrienne avant la guerre, a fui le pays ou a été déplacée à l’intérieur, la question du retour, étape indispensable à la reconstruction, commence à se poser.

C’est le principal message ressorti de la conférence « Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region » , qui vient de se tenir à Bruxelles. Les diplomates européens ont mis l’accent sur les difficultés de l’Europe à isoler le Président Bashar al-Assad, vainqueur de la guerre, soutenu par la Russie et l’Iran, pendant que les États-Unis retirent leurs troupes.

L’UE a rappelé qu’un soutien à la reconstruction à long terme dépendrait du processus de paix de l’ONU pour mettre fin à une guerre responsable de la mort de centaines de milliers de personnes.

Les Européens sont toutefois divisés sur la question de la reconstruction du pays, dans la mesure où le processus de paix de l’ONU est bloqué, que l’intervention militaire russe de 2015 s’avère décisive et que les pays arabes voisins envisagent de rétablir des liens diplomatiques.

« Les États-Unis se retirent et les Russes n’ont pas l’argent. Voilà le contexte », a expliqué un haut fonctionnaire de l’UE, cité par Reuters. L’Allemagne, la France et les Pays-Bas défendent ouvertement l’idée de libérer les fonds de reconstruction uniquement quand le pays aura démarré sa transition politique et que Bashar-al-Assad ne sera plus au pouvoir. Aucun représentant officiel de la Syrie n’a été invité à la conférence. L’Italie, l’Autriche et la Hongrie, grands détracteurs de la politique migratoire européenne, plaident en revanche pour une négociation avec les autorités syriennes pour que les millions de réfugiés puissent rentrer chez eux.

Mogherini craint le « ni guerre ni paix »

La cheffe de la diplomatie européenne, Federica Mogherini, a déclaré qu’il y avait un risque que le pays se retrouve coincé dans une situation de « ni guerre ni paix ». Le Haut Commissaire des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés, Filippo Grandi, a déclaré qu’il était prévisible que 2019 soit la première année depuis le début de la guerre « où il y aura plus de Syriens (réfugiés et déplacés internes) qui rentreront chez eux que de nouveaux déplacés. S’étant rendu en Syrie la semaine dernière, le Haut Commissaire a déclaré avoir été « marqué et touché » par la résilience du peuple syrien.

« C’est dans un contexte de grandes destructions, avec des zones encore dangereuses et un manque de produits de première nécessité (nourriture, médicaments, eau) et d’emplois que de nombreux Syriens rentrent chez eux. Les agences humanitaires font ce qu’elles peuvent, mais un très grand nombre de déplacés internes et quelques réfugiés prennent la décision difficile de rentrer chez eux, et les besoins en produits de première nécessité ne font qu’augmenter », a-t-il expliqué, ajoutant que la plupart des réfugiés voyaient leur avenir dans leur pays natal et que « nous savons que 56 000 Syriens sont rentrés chez eux via des mouvements organisés l’année dernière, mais ce chiffre est certainement plus élevé ».

Engagements financiers

« Je suis heureux de vous annoncer que nous collaborons notamment avec le gouvernement syrien. Et j’aimerais particulièrement remercier la Fédération de Russie pour sa coopération face aux problèmes que le retour des réfugiés syriens implique pour eux », a ajouté Filippo Grandi. Dans le cadre de l’appel de l’ONU, 3,3 milliards de dollars seraient nécessaires pour venir en aide aux déplacés internes et 5,5 milliards de dollars pour les réfugiés et les communautés d’accueil dans les pays voisins.

Le Secrétaire général adjoint aux affaires humanitaires, Marc Lowcock, a déclaré à la presse que les engagements financiers s’élevaient « au moins à 6,5 milliards de dollars » et peut-être même à près de 7 milliards de dollars. « C’est un très bon résultat, et si nous y parvenons vraiment en fin de compte, nous serons très heureux », a-t-il déclaré. Federica Mogherini a déclaré que l’UE contribuerait à hauteur de 560 millions d’euros pour venir en aide au peuple syrien durant l’année 2019 et que le même montant serait libéré les années suivantes.

Filippo Grandi a également exprimé son inquiétude quant à la situation en déclin de la ville d’Idlib, près de la frontière turque. Près de 90 personnes y ont été tuées par des obus et des frappes aériennes, et la moitié d’entre elles étaient des enfants.

« La pire des catastrophes humanitaires »

« Permettez-moi de répéter ce que nous avons déjà dit à maintes reprises. Une attaque militaire d’envergure sur la ville d’Idlib occasionnerait la pire catastrophe humanitaire du 21ème siècle. Ce serait tout simplement inacceptable », a déclaré Filippo Grandi.

Avec l’aide d’avions russes, l’armée syrienne a attaqué des villes au mains des forces rebelles dans la région d’Idlib, dernier bastion rebelle du pays. Ce bombardement a été le plus important depuis des mois. Les forces rebelles qui se sont battues depuis 8 ans pour faire tomber le Président al-Assad sont désormais confinées dans une enclave du nord est du pays, près de la frontière turque. Près de 4 millions de Syriens y vivent aujourd’hui, dont des centaines de milliers d’opposants au régime qui ont fui d’autres régions du pays.

La Turquie, qui a commencé à patrouiller dans la zone tampon vendredi, a condamné ce qu’elle a qualifié de provocations croissantes pour mettre fin à la trêve et a averti qu’une offensive des forces russes et syriennes causerait une crise humanitaire majeure. De nombreux résidents sont exaspérés de l’incapacité des forces turques à répondre aux bombardements. L’armée syrienne a appelé au retrait des forces turques.

L’enclave est protégée par une zone de « désescalade », un accord négocié l’an dernier par les pays qui soutiennent Bashar al-Assad, la Russie, l’Iran ainsi que la Turquie, qui avait auparavant soutenu les forces rebelles et envoyé des troupes pour surveiller la trêve. Le ministre turc des Affaires étrangères, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, a déclaré que 320 000 Syriens avaient pu rentrer chez eux grâce aux « opérations anti-terrorisme » menées par la Turquie et la Syrie.

▻https://www.euractiv.fr/section/migrations/news/return-of-refugees-to-syria-timidly-comes-on-the-agenda

Assad asks Syrian refugees to come home — then locks them up and interrogates them

Guarantees offered by the government as part of a ’reconciliation’ process are often hollow, with returnees harassed or extorted.

Hundreds of Syrian refugees have been arrested after returning home as the war they fled winds down — then interrogated, forced to inform on close family members and in some cases tortured, say returnees and human rights monitors.

Many more who weathered the conflict in rebel-held territory now retaken by government forces are meeting a similar fate as President Bashar al-Assad’s regime deepens its longtime dependence on informers and surveillance.

For Syrian refugees, going home usually requires permission from the government and a willingness to provide a full accounting of any involvement they had with the political opposition. But in many cases the guarantees offered by the government as part of this “reconciliation” process turn out to be hollow, with returnees subjected to harassment or extortion by security agencies or detention and torture to extract information about the refugees’ activities while they were away, according to the returnees and monitoring groups.

Almost 2,000 people have been detained after returning to Syria during the past two years, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, while hundreds more in areas once controlled by the rebels have also been arrested.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would never have gone back,” said a young man who returned to a government-controlled area outside Damascus. He said he has been harassed for months by members of security forces who repeatedly turn up at his home and stop him at checkpoints to search his phone.

“People are still being taken by the secret police, and communities are living between suspicion and fear,” he said. “When they come to your door, you cannot say no. You just have to go with them.”

Returnees interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity or on the understanding that their family names would be withheld, because of security threats.

Since the war erupted in 2011, more than 5 million people have fled Syria and 6 million others have been displaced to another part of the country, according to the United Nations – together representing slightly more than half the Syrian population.

In the past two years, as Assad’s forces have largely routed the rebels and recaptured much of the country, refugees have begun to trickle back. The United Nations says that at least 164,000 refugees have returned to the country since 2016. But citing a lack of access, the United Nations has not been able to document whether they have come back to government- or opposition-held areas.

Assad has called for more homecomings, encouraging returnees in a televised address in February to “carry out their national duties.” He said forgiveness would be afforded to returnees “when they are honest.”

According to our data, you are the exception if nothing happens to you

A recent survey of Syrians who returned to government-held areas found that about 75 percent had been harassed at checkpoints, in government registry offices or in the street, conscripted into the military despite promises they would be exempted, or arrested.

“According to our data, you are the exception if nothing happens to you,” said Nader Othman, a trustee with the Syrian Association for Citizens’ Dignity, which said it had interviewed 350 returnees across Syria. “One of our most important takeaways is that most of those people who came back had thought that they were cleared by the regime. They thought their lack of opposition would protect them.”

The Syrian government did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the treatment of returnees and other Syrians now back under government control.

Outside Syria, many refugees say they were already apprehensive about going home, with fears over a lack of personal security only growing with reports that the government is reneging on its guarantees. Aid groups say there are few signs that a large-scale return will begin anytime soon.

And in conversations with UN representatives, senior Syrian officials have made it clear that not all returnees are equally welcome. According to two European officials who recounted the conversations, individuals with links to opposition groups, media activism or humanitarian work will be least well received.

But pressure on the refugees to return is rising across the Middle East, with Syria’s neighbours tightening restrictions on them in part to get them to leave.

https://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/afp_1dw3ma.jpg?quality=60&strip=all&w=640#.jpg

Homs

Hassan, 30, left his home in the western province of Homs in 2013. Before returning at the end of last year, he secured what he believed were guarantees for his safety after paying a large bribe to a high-ranking security official.

But officers from the state security directorate met him at the airport and took him for interrogation. “They knew everything – what I’d done abroad, which cafes I’d sat in, even the time I had sat with opposition supporters during football matches,” he recalled.

A week later, he was arrested during a visit to a government registry office and taken to a nearby police station. In a dingy room, officers took turns beating and questioning him, he said, accusing him of ferrying ammunition for an armed opposition group inside Syria in 2014.

“I kept telling them that they knew I wasn’t in the country then,” he said. “All they did was ask me for money and tell me that it was the way to my freedom.”

At one point, he said, the guards dragged in a young woman he had never met. “They beat her with a water pipe until she screamed, (then) told me they would do the same if I didn’t cooperate,” Hassan said.

He said he was released at the end of January after relatives paid another bribe, this time $7,000.

Syrians returning from abroad, like Hassan, often have to gain security approval just to re-enter the country, in some cases signing loyalty pledges and providing extensive accounts of any political activities, according to documents listing questions to be asked and statements to be signed.

▻https://nationalpost.com/news/world/assad-asks-syrian-refugees-to-come-home-then-locks-them-up-and-interro

Why Most Syrian Refugees Want to Stay in Germany:
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/790884

Weighed down by economic woes, Syrian refugees head home from Jordan

Rahaf* and Qassem lay out their plans to return to Syria as their five-year-old daughter plays with her toys in their small apartment in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

It is early October, six years after they fled their home in Damascus, and the couple have decided it’s time to give up trying to make a life for themselves in Jordan.

Last year, 51-year-old Qassem lost his job at a cleaning supplies factory when the facility shut down, and Rahaf’s home business as a beautician is slow.

For months, the couple have resorted to borrowing money from friends to cover their 200 Jordanian dinar ($282) monthly rent. They are three months overdue. “There’s nobody else for us to borrow money from,” explains Rahaf.

Weeks later, Qassem crossed the border and headed back to their old neighbourhood, joining an increasing tide of Syrian refugees who are going home, despite the dangers and a multitude of unknowns.

According to the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, 34,000 registered Syrian refugees have returned from Jordan since October 2018, when a key border crossing was reopened after years of closure. It’s a fraction of the 650,000 registered Syrian refugees remaining in Jordan, but a dramatic jump from previous years, when annual returns hovered at around 7,000.

Syrian refugees from the other main host countries – Turkey and Lebanon – are making the trip too. UNHCR has monitored more than 209,000 voluntary refugee returns to Syria since 2016, but the actual figure is likely to be significantly higher.

Some Syrian refugees face political pressure to return and anti-refugee rhetoric, but that hasn’t taken hold in Jordan.

Here, many refugees say they are simply fed up with years spent in a dead-end job market with a bleak economic future. The uptick appears to be driven more by the fact that Syrians who wish to go home can now – for the first time in three years – board a bus or a shared taxi from the border, which is about an hour and a half’s drive north of Amman.

People like Rahaf and Qassem are pinning their hopes on picking up what is left of the lives they led before the war. Their Damascus house, which was damaged in the conflict, is near Qassem’s old shop, where he used to sell basic groceries and cleaning supplies.

Qassem is staying with relatives for now. But the family had a plan: if and when he gave the green light, Rahaf and their children would join him back in Damascus.

While she waited for his signal, Rahaf sold off what little furniture and other possessions they acquired in Jordan. “Honestly, we’ve gotten tired of this life, and we’ve lost hope,” she said.
Money problems

Before he lost his job, Qassem endured years of verbal abuse in the workplace, and few clients made the trip to Rahaf’s home.

When she tried to set up a salon elsewhere, their refugee status created bureaucratic hurdles the couple couldn’t overcome. “I did go ask about paying rent for one shop, and they immediately told me no,” Qassem said. “[The owners] wanted a Jordanian renter.”

Their story echoes those of many other refugees who say they have found peace but little opportunity in Jordan.

Syrian refugees need a permit to work in Jordan – over 153,000 have been issued so far – but they are limited to working in a few industries in designated economic zones. Many others end up in low-paying jobs, and have long faced harsh economic conditions in Jordan.

Thousands of urban refugees earn a meagre living either on farms or construction sites, or find informal work as day labourers.

Abu Omran, who returned to Syria three months ago, fled Damascus with his family in 2013, and for a while was able to find occasional car mechanic jobs in Amman. Work eventually dried up, and he struggled to find ways to make money that did not require hard manual labour.

“He spent the past three years just sitting at home, with no job,” recalled Abu Omran’s wife, Umm Omran.

Speaking to The New Humanitarian in her Amman living room several months after her husband’s departure, she was soon joined for coffee and cigarettes by her youngest son, 19-year-old Badr. Newly married, he wore a ring on one finger.

Times were so hard for the family that Abu Omran left Jordan before he had a chance to attend the wedding, and Badr has also been contemplating a return to Syria – the country he left as a young teenager.

Badr works in a factory near Amman that produces cleaning products, but the pay is low. And although his older brother brings in a small salary from a pastry shop, it’s getting harder and harder for the family to pull together their rent each month.

“I’m not returning because I think the situation in Syria is good. But you don’t enter into a difficult situation unless the one you’re currently in is even worse.”

Entering a void

While return may seem the best option for some, there are still more unknowns than knowns across the border in Syria.

President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces control most of the country, but there are still airstrikes in the rebel-held northwest, and the recent Turkish invasion of the northeast has raised new questions about the country’s future.

“I’m not returning because I think the situation in Syria is good,” said Farah, a mother of three who spoke to TNH in September – about a month before she packed up her things to leave. “But you don’t enter into a difficult situation unless the one you’re currently in is even worse.”

In 2012, Farah and her husband left their home in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus for Jordan, where she gave birth to her three children.

Her husband suffers from kidney stones, and the manual labour he has managed to pick up is just enough for them to pay for the rent of a shared house – crammed in with two other refugee families.

The vast majority of Syrian refugees in Jordan – including Farah and Abu Omran’s families – live in urban areas like Amman, rather than in the country’s three refugee camps. They are still eligible for aid, but Farah had decided by October that she was “no longer able to bear” the poverty in Amman, even though UN food vouchers had covered some of her expenses.

She took her three young children and crossed the border into Syria to stay with her mother, who lives in a southeastern suburb of Damascus. TNH has not been able to contact her since.

Farah’s husband stayed behind in Jordan, fearing arrest or forced military conscription by Syrian government authorities.

This has happened to other people who have gone back to Syria from Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, or other host countries. Despite promises to the contrary from the government, hundreds – and possibly thousands – of returnees have reportedly been detained.

“There are issues with what information is made available to refugees… about what is going to happen to them on the other side, in Syria.”

Lebanese authorities have also forcibly deported thousands of Syrian refugees, and Human Rights Watch says at least three of them were detained by Syrian authorities when they got back. It isn’t clear if any Syrians have faced the same fate returning from Jordan.

Sara Kayyali, a researcher for Human Rights Watch based in Jordan, told TNH she has yet to verify reports of disappearance, conscription, and detainment of returnees from Jordan.

“There are issues with what information is made available to refugees… about what is going to happen to them on the other side, in Syria,” said Kayyali. “Partially because people inside are too scared to talk about the conditions in government-held areas, and partially because the restrictions applied and the behaviour of the Syrian security forces is so arbitrary that it’s difficult to predict.”

Kayyali pointed to the 30 Jordanian citizens detained in Syria since the border opened a year ago – Amman said they entered for tourism and were arrested without reason – as a sign of what could be to come for Syrians.

“[If those threats] apply to Jordanians, then they’re most certainly going to be applied to Syrians, potentially on an even larger scale,” said Kayyali.

There are other obstacles to return, or challenges for people who manage to get back, including destroyed homes and lost jobs. Healthcare and water provision is scattershot in certain parts of the country, while violence and war is ongoing in others.

Francesco Bert, a UNHCR spokesperson in Jordan, said the agency “does not facilitate returns, but offers support to refugees if they voluntarily decide to go home”.

Asked whether it is safe for refugees to go back to Syria, Bert said the agency “considers refugees’ decisions as the main guideposts”, but gives refugees considering or planning to return “information that might inform their decision-making”, to help ensure it is truly voluntary.
The waiting game

Despite the obstacles, more and more people are making the trip. But families often can’t travel back together.

For Rahaf, that meant packing her things and waiting, before finally joining her husband last weekend.

For Umm Omran, however, that means wondering if and when she will ever see her husband again.

The family had hoped that Abu Omran could find a job repairing cars again in Damascus, and if that didn’t work out at least he could live rent-free with his sister’s family.

But plans for his wife and sons to join him someday, once he had found his footing, now look increasingly unlikely.

“He hasn’t said yet if he regrets going back home,” said Umm Omran, who communicates regularly via WhatsApp with her husband and other family members who never left Syria. They live in government-controlled Damascus and don’t give away much in their chats for fear of retaliation by security forces, who they worry could be monitoring their communications.

What Umm Omran has managed to piece together isn’t promising.

Her husband has yet to find a job in Damascus, and is beginning to feel like a burden at his sister’s home. Their own house, where he and Umm Omran raised their sons, is bombed-out and needs extensive repairs before anyone can move back in.

For the time-being, Umm Omran has ruled out her own potential return to Syria, fearing her two sons would insist on joining her and end up being conscripted into the armed forces. So, for now, the family remains split in two.

“When I ask him how things are going, he just says, ‘Thank God’. He says little else,” said Umm Omran, scrolling through chats on her mobile phone. “I think he’s upset about leaving us.”

▻https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2019/11/19/Syrian-refugees-return-Jordan
#Amman #Jordanie

Profughi siriani: in Giordania uscire da un campo costa caro

Condizioni di vita durissime per i profughi siriani scappati dalla guerra che vivono nei campi in Giordania. Ma va ancora peggio, spesso, a chi abbandona i centri d’accoglienza, che si ritrova senza documenti e senza diritti. Una situazione che coinvolge donne, bambini e uomini, vittime di sfruttamento e a rischio di trasferimento forzato in Siria

Invisibili, senza tutele e senza documenti. Perdono la loro identità e vivono in condizioni di vita durissime. Sono i rifugiati siriani in Giordania che escono dall’accoglienza dei campi per vivere negli insediamenti informali. A causa della loro vulnerabilità sono spesso vittime di sfruttamento lavorativo, anche minorile, di abusi e corrono il rischio di essere trasferiti a forza nei campi o rimandati in Siria.

Circa 655 mila persone, tra il 2011 e il 2017, secondo i dati dell’Unhcr, hanno trovato rifugio in Giordania fuggendo dalla Siria.
Dove vanno i profughi siriani in Giordania

79 mila sono stati ospitati nel campo di Zaatari nel nord del Paese, 53 mila sono stati registrati nel campo di Azaraq, a 100 chilometri da Amman, e più di 7 mila nell’Emirates Jordan Camp di Zarqa.

Tutti gli altri vivono fuori dai campi profughi formali, principalmente nei governatorati centrali e settentrionali di Amman, Mafraq, Irbid e Zarqa, dove si trovano privati dell’accesso ai servizi, alle opportunità lavorative e dell’assistenza umanitaria.

In migliaia negli ultimi anni hanno lasciato i campi di Zaatari e Azraq per mancanza di opportunità di sostentamento, per le condizioni di vita estreme dei campi, nonché per i numerosi ostacoli per ottenere il regolare permesso di trasferirsi in altre aree del paese. Chi esce dai campi ha permessi di 2 o 3 giorni, se non rientra perde i documenti e si ritrova senza identità esposto al rischio di essere deportato in Siria.

La mancanza di documentazione in cui si trovano centinaia di uomini, donne e bambini mette a serio rischio la loro vita. Tra le conseguenze più gravi ed evidenti: l’emarginazione, l’abbandono scolastico, le problematiche di genere, l’accesso limitato agli aiuti umanitari e ai servizi pubblici, violenze, abusi, sfruttamento lavorativo, separazione familiare e, non ultimo, la carenza di cure sanitarie.
Sanità sempre più cara per i rifugiati siriani

In Giordania un recente provvedimento aumenta i costi delle cure mediche per i rifugiati: dallo scorso febbraio sono stati cancellati i servizi sanitari sovvenzionati per i siriani che vivono in Giordania e che oggi devono pagare l’80% della “tariffa straniera”. Questo potrebbe avere un impatto sul loro accesso all’assistenza sanitaria e aumentare la loro vulnerabilità, denuncia Medici Senza Frontiere (Msf).

L’accesso all’assistenza sanitaria di base era stato già messo a rischio da un precedente provvedimento del novembre 2014 che aveva eliminato i servizi sanitari gratuiti per i siriani che vivono fuori dai campi profughi.
Immigrazione siriana: in arrivo l’amnistia per i profughi

A metà del 2017 si parlava ufficiosamente di un’amnistia che potesse regolarizzazione lo stato della documentazione dei rifugiati. Sebbene non siano stati ancora chiariti i requisiti specifici, l’amnistia si applicherà a coloro che hanno lasciato i campi prima di luglio 2017 e dovrebbe essere presto implementata formalmente.

«I più vulnerabili rischiano spesso di essere invisibili. Per questo in Giordania abbiamo scelto di lavorare negli insediamenti informali, non riconosciuti dalle autorità, per aiutare centinaia di famiglie di rifugiati siriani che affrontano la sfida di regolarizzare lo stato della propria documentazione legale e civile in Giordania», scrive Monica Matarazzo, senior protection advisor di Intersos, nel rapporto “Sul Campo” diffuso in aprile.
Immigrati siriani senza documentazione legale

Fino a luglio 2014 i rifugiati potevano lasciare i campi regolarmente, con tutta la documentazione. A gennaio 2015 è stata sospesa la procedura di rilascio e chi è uscito dai campi dopo luglio 2014 non ha diritto a ottenere la documentazione legale, ovvero la carta dei servizi del ministero dell’Interno (Carta Moi) e il Certificato per richiedenti asilo dell’Unhcr (Asc dell’Unhcr).

«Senza i due principali documenti legali, i rifugiati in Giordania non sono in grado di ottenere la documentazione civile (certificati di nascita, matrimonio o morte) e permessi di lavoro. Allo stesso tempo, i rifugiati privi di documenti non hanno, o hanno accesso ridotto, ai servizi pubblici e all’assistenza umanitaria e spesso devono ricorrere a meccanismi di risposta negativi come il lavoro minorile, i matrimoni precoci, l’indebitamento e l’accettazione di vivere in condizioni abitative degradanti. Inoltre, si trovano di fronte a un concreto rischio di reinsediamento forzato nei campi o di deportazione in Siria», si legge nell’Annual report 2017 di Intersos.

I rifugiati siriani che escono dal sistema dell’accoglienza dei campi profughi di Zaatari e Azraq, si insediano su terreni privati chiamati Informal Tented Settlements. Migliaia di persone pagano i proprietari terrieri con il lavoro quotidiano nei campi, svolto prevalentemente da donne e spesso anche da bambini. Queste persone hanno un accesso limitato ad alimenti, acqua, servizi igienici, sanità, istruzione e altri servizi essenziali.
Espulsi 400 profughi siriani al mese tra bambini e adulti

La paura più grande dei rifugiati siriani senza documenti, o con documenti non regolari, è quella di essere riportati in Siria. «Chi viene deportato fuori dalla Giordania è considerato morto. Non c’è nessuna sicurezza a Daara o in qualsiasi altro posto in Siria», dice un rifugiato che vive nell’area di Irbid. «Evito di andare in giro e di avere problemi. Vado al lavoro o sto a casa, niente di più. Evito i problemi limitando la mia libertà di movimento».

Secondo l’organizzazione Human Right Watch la Giordania ha espulso centinaia di rifugiati siriani – anche con espulsioni collettive di intere famiglie – senza fornire alcuna alternativa all’espulsione e senza considerare in nessun modo il loro bisogno di protezione internazionale.

Nei primi cinque mesi del 2017 le autorità giordane, sempre secondo Hrw, hanno espulso circa 400 rifugiati siriani al mese. Ogni mese 300 rifugiati siriani tornano in Siria in circostanze che sembrano volontarie, mentre altri 550 circa ritornano in circostanze non chiare.

Le principali motivazioni delle misure di espulsione verso la Siria – riporta l’Annual report 2017 di Intersos – risultano essere le minacce alla sicurezza nazionale e la mancanza di documentazione civile e legale, in particolare i permessi di lavoro.
Perché i profughi siriani scappano: la storia di Nora

«Quando il mio paese è stato distrutto non avevo nessun posto dove vivere. Ogni notte ero costretta a bussare la porta di parenti e amici per farmi ospitare. Ho trascorso un mese facendo questa vita “miserabile”. Poi ho sentito di persone che si trasferivano in Giordania. Così ho incontrato l’uomo che con la macchina poteva portarci in Giordania. Io ho 10 bambini e al tempo erano tutti piccoli».

Nora è siriana, di Busra Alharir in Daraa. Lei e i suoi 10 bambini sono fuggiti dalla Siria. Ha vissuto nel campo di Zaatari poi, insieme ai figli e al marito, se ne è andata per vivere negli insediamenti nella zona di Mafraq. Uno dei suoi figli, a causa del mancato rinnovo del documento di identità, è stato fermato dalla polizia e poi espulso in Siria. E questa è solo una delle tante storie raccolte dal progetto multimediale Relocated Identities realizzato da Alessio Cupelli e Katia Marinelli per Intersos.

Molte persone vivono anche nel timore di essere fermate dalla polizia e trasferite forzatamente in un campo ufficiale. Si stima che da aprile 2014 a novembre 2016 circa 20.000 rifugiati siriani sono stati trasferiti nei campi profughi giordani, la stragrande maggioranza delle strutture remote del campo di Azraq, poiché il campo di Zaatari aveva da tempo raggiunto la capienza massima.
I numeri della separazione dei nuclei familiari

La principale conseguenza del trasferimento forzato è la separazione familiare: nel 55,1% dei casi valutati da Intersos il trasferimento riguardava quattro o meno membri della famiglia, molto spesso incluso il capofamiglia, con meno del 20% dei casi riguardanti l’intera famiglia.

I capifamiglia sono i più esposti ai controlli di polizia nei loro spostamenti o quando si recano al lavoro. Di conseguenza, chi rimane sono generalmente donne e bambini. Lavoro minorile, matrimoni precoci e abbandono scolastico sono solo alcuni degli effetti negativi a questa condizione.

Altre ripercussioni, oltre alla difficoltà economica, riguardano aspetti legati alla sfera psicologica degli individui: traumi, paure, abusi, sfruttamenti e violenze sessuali o di genere.

https://www.osservatoriodiritti.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/profughi-siriani-alessio-cupelli-1.jpg

▻https://www.osservatoriodiritti.it/2018/05/29/profughi-siriani-in-giordania

Vu cela sur twitter le 27.09.2016 :
‘Mohammad, Sudanese Poet in the Calais Jungle’ by Hannah Rose Thomas - Oil Paint on Wood

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cph-BK1WEAAkIM2.jpg

"Meglio morire in Siria che la ’non vita’ del campo profughi"

Reportage dal centro di accoglienza di Zaatari, nel deserto giordano, dove sono ospitate migliaia di rifugiati che sempre più numerosi tornano da dove sono fuggiti. Al campo, senza lavoro e senza acqua, l’esistenza è infatti durissima

▻http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2016/05/10/news/campo_profughi_siriani_zaatari-139485852/?ref=HREC1-26

#Dadaab #camp_de_réfugiés #asile #migrations #Kenya #réfugiés #réfugiés_somaliens

Même si ils se réfèrent au camp de #Zaatari...
Zaatari : a Camp and not a City

Just over three years ago, the Zaatari refugee camp was established to accommodate the growing number of Syrian refugees who were fleeing to the neighbouring country of Jordan. Located around 70 kilometres from the capital city of Amman and 30 kilometres from the Syrian border, Zaatari occupies a space of some seven square kilometres and currently houses around 80,000 refugees.

▻http://urban-refugees.org/debate/zaatari-camp-city

Syria conflict: Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp from the air

Many of those forced to leave their homes during the Syrian conflict have taken refuge in neighbouring countries, and 80,000 of them are now living in a three-square-mile piece of the desolate Jordanian desert - home to the sprawling Zaatari refugee camp.

▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35492705

A look into Zaatari camp during winter

Mohammad, a Syrian refugee, resident in Zaatari camp in Jordan, sells hot beans on a cart in the main market street as the first winter rain begins to fall.

▻http://www.nrc.no/?did=9213795

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2h-UEdgiQs