Racism and Deportation Threats: Syrian Refugees in Lebanon Vulnerable to Arrest and Expulsion

Years ago, Samer and his family took refuge in Lebanon to escape the war in Syria, but the security they sought was accompanied by difficult living conditions, accompanied by racist rhetoric against Syrian refugees, leading to the fear of deportation.

Last week, there was no news of his brother after the Lebanese army handed him over to the Syrian authorities, who arrested him.

During the past few weeks, the army launched massive raid campaigns to arrest Syrians who do not possess residency or identity papers, which resulted in the arrest of about 450 people, more than sixty of whom were deported to Syria, according to a source in a humanitarian organization familiar with the refugee file.

The raids in a suburb of Beirut included Samer’s brother’s humble home. The army accompanied Samer, his wife and two children to the border, where they were handed over to the Syrian security forces, who released the wife and two children a few days later and arrested the husband, according to his brother’s account.

Samer, 26, who asked to use a pseudonym for fear of his safety, told AFP, “We are afraid that we will live the same fate. They will deport us to Syria, where we do not know when we might be arrested or even disappeared.”

The young man, who and his brother were among those who participated in the popular protests against the Syrian regime when it broke out in 2011, added, “We are afraid that my brother will go missing” in the regime’s prisons.

After the outbreak of the conflict in neighboring Syria, a large number of Syrians sought refuge in Lebanon, as the authorities currently estimate that there are more than two million refugees on its territory, while the number registered with the United Nations slightly exceeds the threshold of 800,000.

Since the Syrian army regained control of the largest part of the country, some countries are exerting pressure to deport refugees from their lands under the pretext that the intensity of the battles has decreased. However, this does not mean, according to human rights and international organizations, that the return of refugees has become safe in light of the crumbling infrastructure, difficult economic conditions, and security prosecutions. They include arbitrary arrests and torture.

In Lebanon, pressures on Syrian refugees varied from curfews at certain times, arrests, and forced deportations to raids and restrictions on residency procedures. While the authorities view the refugee file as a burden, and consider that their presence has contributed to accelerating and exacerbating the ongoing economic collapse since 2019.

“We are tired.. we want a solution”

Samer says: “We are also tired and we want a solution. We do not want money and we do not want anything from Lebanon,” explaining: “They accuse us of taking aid from the United Nations in dollars, but that is not true.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees confirms that those registered with it receive cash assistance in Lebanese pounds only, and that the funding available to it covers 43 percent of the refugees in need.

The Commission recently indicated, in a statement to Agence France-Presse, that there has been an increase in the number of raids in areas where Syrian refugees live in the regions of Mount Lebanon and the North, including at least 13 raids in April.

The organization reported reports that among the arrested and deported were refugees registered with it.

The source following the file told AFP that in some cases children were separated from their families.

A number of Syrians have expressed a fear that they have possessed in recent days, preventing them from even going out into the street.

Abu Salim, who asked to use a pseudonym, says, “For days, I have been sitting with about twenty other Syrian workers in the warehouse of the place where we work, for fear of being arrested.”

Abu Salim fears that he will be handed over to the Syrian authorities after he suffered six years in their prisons, where he was subjected to severe torture, he said.

He adds, “I do not want to live the experience of detention again. If I enter prison again, I will not get out of it.”

“Why the hate?”

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati chaired two meetings on Wednesday to discuss the file of the Syrian refugees, during which it was emphasized that the army and security forces would continue to take measures “against violators, especially those who entered illegally and did not have official and legal documents.”

The Minister of Social Affairs, Hector Hajjar, considered this month that the issue had become a “issue of life and death,” warning of “dangerous demographic changes and we will become refugees in our country.”

Over the past weeks, hate speech against the Syrians has risen once again, and many Lebanese have called on social media to expel them from Lebanon.

Ammar (31 years old), a Syrian refugee in Lebanon since 2014, asks, “Why all this hatred towards us? We are a people who sought refuge here to escape death. What did we do to you?”

Ammar, the father of an infant, has been confused since the start of the latest raids.

He says, “I haven’t left the house since I heard about the deportation, but I’m also afraid that the army will break into my house and hand me over, and I have to go back to work to buy milk for my baby.”

Ammar had hoped to graduate from the College of Business Administration, but the conflict in his country prompted him to seek refuge in Lebanon, where he works as a delivery service.

He adds, “If I had known that things would be so difficult, I would not have married and destroyed my family’s life with me.”

With the continued deterioration of living conditions in Syria, many are crossing into Lebanon via smuggling routes, hoping to board illegal immigration boats. Lebanon has become a starting point for them to reach Europe for some time.

“I may find hope in the sea, but in Syria there is no more hope,” says Ammar.

He added, “I would rather die at sea than return to Syria.”