BEIRUT/ANKARA: More than 5 million Syrians are now refugees, the UN said Thursday, as aid groups urged the international community to end the country’s six-year war and provide more assistance.
The new figures mean around a quarter of Syria’s population has fled since the March 2011 start of a conflict that has killed over 320,000 people.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR urged more international assistance, with spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly calling the figure an “important milestone.”
“As the number of men, women and children fleeing six years of war in Syria passes the 5 million mark, the international community needs to do more to help them,” UNHCR said in a statement.
NGOs helping Syrian refugees have regularly sounded the alarm about the crisis, appealing for more funds and international action to end Syria’s war.
“It’s clear that the international community has completely failed to end the conflict in Syria,” said Alun McDonald, regional spokesman for Save the Children.
“The situation inside the country is still not remotely safe for people to go home, we see more people being uprooted every day,” he told AFP. He said much of the international community was also failing refugees, increasingly closing borders and turning them away.
Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri, the Riyadh-based Saudi political analyst and international relations scholar, blamed Bashar Assad for the tragedy in Syria. “I believe the number is much higher than 5 million. But let us go by the official figure. It is a huge number, and the Bashar Assad regime is directly responsible for this catastrophe,” he told Arab News on Thursday. He said Russia and the world community have simply failed to find a solution to the conflict.
“They have just kept talking ... at Geneva and Astana. They don’t care for the suffering people of Syria. They just want to save one man. They want to depopulate the entire nation for one man. This is very sad,” he said.
Al-Shehri said Iran and its militias are complicit in the crimes against humanity. “They are doing all this to effect demographic changes in the country so that whenever the elections are held they are able to engineer victories,” he added.
Most Syrian refugees are hosted by neighbors Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, with more in Iraq and Egypt.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have also fled to Europe, often risking exploitation by smugglers and even death on arduous journeys by land and sea.
Smaller numbers have been resettled officially in Europe, Canada and the US, though President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to temporarily halt all Syrian refugee entries.
The largest group is in Turkey, with over 2.9 million registered Syrian refugees, according to the UN.
Less than a 10th reside in camps, with most living in Turkish cities, including more than half a million in Istanbul alone.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an early backer of the Syrian uprising who repeatedly urged Syria’s President Bashar Assad to step down, has even floated the possibility of granting some refugees citizenship.
Metin Corabatir, former spokesman for the UN refugee agency UNHCR in Turkey, told Arab News that there was a “significant” number of child refugees that do not attend school due to the economic difficulties they face.
He added that Syrian refugees living in Turkey face serious problems working or continuing their education.
“The lack of Turkish knowledge obliges them to work in low-profile and low-paid unregistered jobs, while the need to earn money pushes them out of education,” he said.
In Jordan, some 657,000 Syrian refugees are registered with the UN, but the government says the true figure is 1.3 million.
Tens of thousands of Syrians live in two large camps, Zaatari and Azraq, but the majority live in homes and apartments, able to access the job market but competing for scarce employment.
The situation is more complicated in Lebanon, where the government refused to set up formal camps.
The UN says around 1 million Syrians are in the country, though the government says the figure is higher, with many living in dismal conditions in informal camps.
Mouin Merehbi, Lebanon’s minister of state for refugee affairs, told Arab News that Lebanon does not support the resettlement of the Syrian refugees in a third country if that means they will lose their identity.
“We do not encourage uprooting people from their land and resettling them in another country… We support helping this people to travel to other countries for education, work and training prior to going back to Syria.”
Merehbi stressed that the displaced had left Syria to preserve their lives. “It is their choice and we refuse to force them to return (to Syria) or imposing any kind of pressure.”
Over 5 million: UN issues stark warning as Syrian refugee count reaches new high
Over 5 million: UN issues stark warning as Syrian refugee count reaches new high
Bashar Assad poisoned in Moscow: Report
- Ousted Syrian dictator requested medical help then began to ‘cough violently and choke’
- ‘There is every reason to believe an assassination attempt was made’
LONDON: An assassination attempt by poisoning has been made on former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, The Sun reported.
The ousted leader reportedly fell ill on Sunday in Moscow, where he has resided since fleeing Syria in early December.
Assad, 59, requested medical help then began to “cough violently and choke,” according to online account General SVR, which is believed to be run by a former top spy in Russia.
“There is every reason to believe an assassination attempt was made,” it added.
Assad was treated in his apartment, and his condition is said to have stabilized by Monday. He was confirmed to have been poisoned by medical testing, the account said, without citing direct sources.
There has been no confirmation of the event from the Russian government.
Gaza’s Islamic Jihad says Israeli hostage tried to take own life
- One of the group’s medical teams intervened and prevented him from dying
DUBAI: An Israeli hostage held by Gaza’s Islamic Jihad militant group has tried to take his own life, the spokesperson for the movement’s armed wing said in a video posted on Telegram on Thursday.
One of the group’s medical teams intervened and prevented him from dying, the Al Quds Brigades spokesperson added, without going into any more detail on the hostage’s identity or current condition.
Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Militants led by Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement killed 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage in an attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies. Hamas ally Islamic Jihad also took part in the assault.
The military campaign that Israel launched in response has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians, according to health officials in the coastal enclave.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza said the hostage had tried to take his own life three days ago due to his psychological state, without going into more details.
Abu Hamza accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of setting new conditions that had led to “the failure and delay” of negotiations for the hostage’s release.
The man had been scheduled to be released with other hostages under the conditions of the first stage of an exchange deal with Israel, Abu Hamza said. He did not specify when the man had been scheduled to be released or under which deal.
Arab mediators’ efforts, backed by the United States, have so far failed to conclude a ceasefire in Gaza, under a possible deal that would also see the release of Israeli hostages in return for the freedom of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Islamic Jihad’s armed wing had issued a decision to tighten the security and safety measures for the hostages, Abu Hamza added.
In July, Islamic Jihad’s armed wing said some Israeli hostages had tried to kill themselves after it started treating them in what it said was the same way that Israel treated Palestinian prisoners.
“We will keep treating Israeli hostages the same way Israel treats our prisoners,” Abu Hamza said at that time. Israel has dismissed accusations that it mistreats Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli airstrikes kill at least 37 across Gaza, medics say
CAIRO: Israeli airstrikes killed at least 37 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including 11 people in a tent encampment sheltering displaced families, medics said.
They said the 11 included women and children in the Al-Mawasi district, which was designated as a humanitarian zone for civilians earlier in the war between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas militant group, now in its 15th month. The director general of Gaza’s police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his aide, Hussam Shahwan, were killed in the strike, according to the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry.
“By committing the crime of assassinating the director general of police in the Gaza Strip, the occupation is insisting on spreading chaos in the (enclave) and deepening the human suffering of citizens,” it added in a statement.
The Israeli military said it had conducted an intelligence-based strike in Al-Mawasi, just west of the city of Khan Younis, and eliminated Shahwan, calling him the head of Hamas security forces in southern Gaza. It made no mention of Salah’s death.
Other Israeli airstrikes killed at least 26 Palestinians, including six in the interior ministry headquarters in Khan Younis and others in north Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, the Shati (Beach) camp and central Gaza’s Maghazi camp.
Israel’s military said it had targeted Hamas militants who intelligence indicated were operating in a command and control center “embedded inside the Khan Younis municipality building in the Humanitarian Area.”
Asked about the reported 37 deaths, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said it followed international law in waging the war in Gaza and that it took “feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.”
The military has accused Gaza militants of using built-up residential areas for cover. Hamas denies this.
Hamas’ smaller ally Islamic Jihad said it fired rockets into the southern Israeli kibbutz of Holit near Gaza on Thursday. The Israeli military said it intercepted one projectile in the area that had crossed from southern Gaza. Israel has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians in the war, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the tiny, heavily built-up coastal territory is in ruins. The war was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
27 migrants die off Tunisia, 83 rescued, in shipwrecks: civil defence
TUNIS: Twenty-seven migrants, including women and children, died after two boats capsized off central Tunisia, with 83 people rescued, a civil defense official told AFP on Thursday.
The rescued and dead passengers, who were found off the Kerkennah Islands off central Tunisia, were aiming to reach Europe and were all from sub-Saharan African countries, said Zied Sdiri, head of civil defense in the city of Sfax.
Searches were still underway for other possible missing passengers, according to the Tunisian National Guard, which oversees the coast guard.
Tunisia is a key departure point for irregular migrants seeking to reach Europe with Italy, whose island of Lampedusa is only 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Tunisia, often their first port of call.
Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt the perilous Mediterranean crossing, which has seen a spate of recent shipwrecks, with the dangers exacerbated by bad weather.
On December 18, at least 20 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa died in a shipwreck off the city of Sfax, with five others missing.
Earlier on December 12, the coast guard rescued 27 African migrants near Jebeniana, north of Sfax, but 15 were reported dead or missing.
Since the beginning of the year, the Tunisian human rights group FTDES has counted “between 600 and 700” migrants killed or missing in shipwrecks off Tunisia. More than 1,300 migrants died or disappeared in 2023.
kl/bou/dcp
Syria forces launch security sweep in Homs city: state media
- Syrian security forces are conducting a security sweep in the city of Homs, state media reported on Thursday
DAMASCUS: Syrian security forces are conducting a security sweep in the city of Homs, state media reported on Thursday, with a monitor saying targets include protest organizers from the Alawite minority of the former president.
“The Ministry of Interior, in cooperation with the Military Operations Department, begins a wide-scale combing operation in the neighborhoods of Homs city,” state news agency SANA said quoting a security official.
The statement said the targets were “war criminals and those involved in crimes who refused to hand over their weapons and go to the settlement centers” but also “fugitives from justice, in addition to hidden ammunition and weapons.”
Since Islamist-led rebels seized power in a lightning offensive last month, the transitional government has been registering former conscripts and soldiers and asking them to hand over their weapons.
“The Ministry of Interior calls on the residents of the neighborhoods of Wadi Al-Dhahab, Akrama not to go out to the streets, remain home, and fully cooperate with our forces,” the statement said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, told AFP the two districts are majority-Alawite — the community from which ousted President Bashar Assad hails.
“The ongoing campaign aims to search for former Shabiha and those who organized or participated in the Alawite demonstrations last week, which the administration considered as incitement against” its authority, he said.
Shabiha were notorious pro-government militias tasked with helping to crush dissent under Assad.
On December 25, thousands protested in several areas of Syria after a video circulated showing an attack on an Alawite shrine in the country’s north.
AFP was unable to independently verify the footage or the date of the incident but the interior ministry said the video was “old and dates to the time of the liberation” of Aleppo in December.
Since seizing power, Syria’s new leadership has repeatedly tried to reassure minorities that they will not be harmed.
Alawites fear backlash against their community both as a religious minority and because of its long association with the Assad family.
Last week, security forces launched an operation against pro-Assad fighters in the western province of Tartus, in the Alawite heartland, state media had said, a day after 14 security personnel of the new authorities and three gunmen were killed in clashes there.
