SIDON, Lebanon: Rozan Qarqour lives with her husband and six children in a tiny room in an unfinished building, where they share a bathroom with other Syrian refugees. Her husband sells paper cups of cardamom-flavored Arabic coffee on the streets of the Lebanese port city of Sidon to earn a few dollars to buy bread and vegetables.
But despite their dismal life in Lebanon, the family, which fled Syria’s central province of Hama six years ago, has no plans to return home. Nor do the 160 other families who live in the Ouzai compound — or most of the other 1.2 million Syrian refugees who live in Lebanon.
“I will not take my children back to death and hunger,” said Qarqour, 32, as she sat with other women on the floor cutting fresh fava beans that would later be cooked with rice on a small gas burner.
A much touted Russian initiative to facilitate the return of refugees of Syria’s 7-year-old war from around the region appears to have fizzled out, with only a tiny fraction of the nearly 6 million who fled their country since the start of the conflict in March 2011 returning home.
The Russian military says 114,000 Syrians have returned home since the beginning of 2018. The UN refugee agency says it has verified only 37,000 refugees who have voluntarily returned this year.
Syria’s war has displaced half the pre-war population of 23 million people, of which 5.6 million have fled the country. In Lebanon, where Syrians make up nearly a quarter of the population, most of the refugees say they intend to stay put, citing economic concerns, ongoing fighting and destroyed homes.
The Qarqour family’s region of Sahel Al-Ghab is still in rebel hands and often gets bombed by the government, and their home has been destroyed. There are no jobs there, Qarqour says, and she hopes they can resettle in a third country, although the family has not yet applied.
The fighting has wound down after seven years of brutal war. Using overwhelming military force, and with the help of Russian airpower and Iranian-backed militias on the ground, President Bashar Assad has retaken key cities and major population centers in Syria.
But most refugees say they do not feel safe returning while the government they fled is still in place. Fighting continues in some areas, while others are in ruins. Many are worried their sons could be picked up for conscription or detained, harassed or imprisoned if they go back. Others worry they won’t find jobs.
Meanwhile, many have put down roots across the region and in Europe, and do not want to risk losing what they built by returning to Syria.
Russia, a key ally of Assad, is eager to show a return to normalcy in Syria and has pushed to repatriate Syrians who fled. However, the UN has expressed concern about a premature return before the situation stabilizes and without guarantees for returning refugees.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in August that “all conditions are in place” for the return of 1 million refugees, quoting progress in restoring infrastructure and the fact that hostilities have largely subsided.
At the height of the conflict, the number of registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon reached 1.2 million, making the tiny Mediterranean country the biggest host of refugees per capita in the world. Today there are about 940,000, after some returned to Syria or were resettled in other countries, according to Lebanon’s Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Mouin Merhebi.
Merhebi said about 12,000 Syrian refugees have returned home from Lebanon since June. His numbers are much lower than those released by Lebanon’s General Security Directorate, which says more than 87,000 have returned. Merhebi, a harsh critic of the Syrian government and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, said some of those who have been registered as returnees go back and forth between the neighboring countries.
Eager to see Syrians return because of the strain their presence puts on the struggling economy, the Lebanese government has embraced the Russian plan and organizes convoys for refugees to return to Syria on almost a weekly basis.
Most will continue to opt out for now, however.
At the Ouzai compound in Sidon, time passes slowly for the refugees. Abu Ahmad, 42, sat in the yard eating mushabbak, a Syrian sweet consisting of fried pastry dipped in syrup made by one of the residents. He works in agriculture but his boss has not called him for a week.
“I am not happy in Lebanon, but here there is school for my children, there is a doctor if I need it and there are hospitals for an emergency,” said the father of five daughters and four sons. “Here I can make enough money to survive.”
Ahmad added that he applied years ago for resettlement in a third country.
“I am ready to go to the south pole if I get a job there,” he said.
As Syria war winds down, refugees stay put despite hardships
As Syria war winds down, refugees stay put despite hardships
- Syria’s war has displaced half the pre-war population of 23 million people, of which 5.6 million have fled the country
- The UN refugee agency says it has verified only 37,000 refugees who have voluntarily returned this year
16 injured after Israel hit by Yemen-launched ‘projectile’
- The projectile fell in Bnei Brak town, east of Tel Aviv
- Yemen’s Houthis claim missile attack on central Israel
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said Saturday it had failed to intercept a “projectile” launched from Yemen that landed near Tel Aviv, with the national medical service saying 14 people were lightly wounded.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in central Israel, one projectile launched from Yemen was identified and unsuccessful interception attempts were made,” the Israeli military said on its Telegram channel.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the missile attack in central Israel on Saturday, in a statement the Houthis said they had “targeted a military target of the Israeli enemy in the occupied area of” Tel Aviv using a ballistic missile. Israeli rescuers earlier reported 16 wounded in the attack.
Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have repeatedly launched missile attacks against Israel since the war in Gaza began more than a year ago, most of which have been intercepted.
In return, Israel has struck multiple targets in Yemen — including ports and energy facilities in areas controlled by the Houthis.
“A short time ago, reports were received of a weapon falling in one of the settlements within the Tel Aviv district,” Israeli police said Saturday.
According to Israeli media, the projectile fell in the town of Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv.
Israel’s emergency medical service said 14 people had been injured.
“Additional teams are treating several people on-site who were injured while heading to protected areas, as well as those suffering from anxiety,” a spokesman said.
The Houthi rebels say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians and last week pledged to continue operations “until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted.”
On December 9, a drone claimed by Houthis exploded on the top floor of a residential building in the central Israel city of Yavne, causing no casualties.
In July, a Houthi drone attack in Tel Aviv killed an Israeli civilian, prompting retaliatory strikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.
The Houthis have also regularly targeted shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, leading to retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets by US and sometimes British forces.
The rebels said Thursday that Israeli air strikes that day killed nine people, after the group fired a missile toward Israel, badly damaging a school.
While Israel has previously hit targets in Yemen, Thursday’s were the first against the rebel-held capital Sanaa.
“The Israeli enemy targeted ports in Hodeida and power stations in Sanaa, and the Israeli aggression resulted in the martyrdom of nine civilian martyrs,” rebel leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi said in a lengthy speech broadcast by the rebels’ Al-Masira TV.
Israel said it struck the targets in Yemen after intercepting a missile fired from the country, a strike the rebels subsequently claimed.
Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree said they had fired ballistic missiles at “two specific and sensitive military targets... in the occupied Yaffa area,” referring to the Jaffa region near Tel Aviv.
Qatar embassy reopens in Damascus with flag raising
DAMASCUS: Qatar reopened its embassy in Damascus on Saturday, 13 years after it was closed early in Syria’s civil conflict, as foreign governments seek to establish ties with the country’s new rulers.
An AFP journalist saw Qatar’s flag raised over the mission, making it the second nation, after Turkiye, to officially reopen its embassy since Islamist-led militants drove president Bashar Assad from power earlier this month.
Unlike several other Arab governments, Qatar — which supported opposition groups during Syria’s civil war — did not attempt to rehabilitate Assad before his toppling.
Earlier on Saturday, workers were busy sweeping the pavement, cleaning the area and removing graffiti from the building’s walls. One of the workers had placed the Qatari flag at the base of the flagpole.
Doha sent a diplomatic delegation to Damascus several days ago to meet with the transitional government. The mission expressed “Doha’s full commitment to support the Syrian people,” a Qatari diplomat said.
On Tuesday, the European Union said it was ready to reopen its diplomatic mission in Damascus, while Britain, France and the United States have all sent delegations to the Syrian capital since Assad’s overthrow.
The French flag was raised over Paris’s embassy in Damascus on Tuesday, although the country’s special envoy to Syria said the mission would remain closed “as long as security criteria are not met.”
Meanwhile, the United States on Friday dropped a $10 million bounty it had issued years earlier on Ahmed Al-Sharaa, Syria’s new leader and the head of the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham Islamist militant group that spearheaded the ouster of Assad.
HTS has its roots in Al-Qaeda, but has sought to moderate its image in recent years.
Syria’s new rulers name Asaad Al-Shibani as foreign minister, state news agency says
Syria’s new rulers have appointed a foreign minister, the official Syrian news agency (SANA) said on Saturday, as they seek to build international relations two weeks after Bashar Assad was ousted.
The ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
No details were immediately available about Shibani.
Syria’s de facto ruler, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, has actively engaged with foreign delegations since assuming power, including hosting the UN’s Syria envoy and senior US diplomats.
Sharaa has signaled a willingness to engage diplomatically with international envoys, saying his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development. He has said he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
US delegation to Syria says Assad’s torture-prison network is far bigger than previously thought
- In first official visit to Syria by US officials in 12 years, team led by secretary of state for near eastern affairs meets the country’s interim leadership
- As they search for missing Americans, delegates discover the number of regime prisons could be as high as 40, much more than the 10 or 20 they suspected
CHICAGO: There are “many more” regime prisons in Syria than previously believed, a high-level delegation of US diplomats said on Friday as they searched for missing Americans in the country.
In the first official visit to Syria by American officials in 12 years, the delegation met on Friday with members of the country’s interim leadership both to urge the formation of an inclusive government and to locate US citizens who disappeared during the conflict.
Western countries have sought to establish connections with senior figures in the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham militant group that led the offensive which forced President Bashar Assad from power this month.
Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, who led the US delegation, told journalists, including Arab News, that the delegates attended a commemorative event for “the tens of thousands of Syrians and non-Syrians alike who were detained, tortured, forcibly disappeared or are missing, and who brutally perished at the hands of the former regime.”
Among the missing Americans are freelance journalist Austin Tice, who was kidnapped in 2012, and Majid Kamalmaz, a psychotherapist from Texas who disappeared in 2017 and is thought to have died.
Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens, who is part of the delegation, said the number of prisons in which detainees were tortured and killed by the Assad regime is much higher than suspected.
“We thought there’d be maybe 10 or 20,” he said. “It’s probably more like 40; it might even be more. They’re in little clusters at times. Sometimes they’re in the far outreaches of Damascus.
“Over 12 years, we’ve been able to pinpoint about six facilities that we believe have a high possibility of having had Austin Tice at one point or another. Now, over the last probably 11 or 12 days, we’ve received additional information based on the changing conditions, which leads us to add maybe one or two or three more facilities to that initial number of six.”
Carstens said the US has limited resources available in Syria and will focus on six of the prisons in an attempt to determine Tice’s fate. But he said the search would eventually expand to cover all 40 prison locations.
“We’re going to be like bulldogs on this,” he said. “We’re not going to stop until we find the information that we need to conclude what has happened to Austin, where he is, and to return him home to his family.”
He said the FBI cannot be present on the ground in Syria for an extended period of time to search for missing Americans “right now,” but suggested this might change in the future. Meanwhile, the US continues to work with “partners,” including nongovernmental organizations and the news media in Syria, he added.
Leaf confirmed the delegation met Ahmad Al-Sharaa, the commander of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, an Islamist group that was once aligned with Al-Qaeda and is still designated as a terrorist organization by Washington. She said she told Al-Sharaa the US would not pursue the $10 million reward for his capture, and hoped the group will be able to help locate Tice and other missing Americans.
The delegation received “positive messages” from the Syrian representatives they met during their short visit, Leaf said. America is committed to helping the Syrian people overcome “over five decades of the most horrifying repression,” she added.
“We will be looking for progress on these principles and actions, not just words,” she said. “I also communicated the importance of inclusion and broad consultation during this time of transition.
“We fully support a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process that results in an inclusive and representative government which respects the rights of all Syrians, including women and Syria's diverse ethnic and religious communities.”
Leaf said the US would be able to help with humanitarian assistance and work with Syrians to “seize this historic opportunity.”
She added: “We also discussed the critical need to ensure terrorist groups cannot pose a threat inside of Syria or externally, including to the US and our partners in the region. Ahmad Al-Sharaa committed to this.”
Bringing Assad to justice for his crimes, particularly those carried out during the civil war, which started in 2011, remains a priority for the US government, Leaf said.
“Syrians desperately want that,” she added.
She called on the international community to offer technical expertise and other support to help document Assad’s crimes, including evidence from the graves and mass graves that have been uncovered since his downfall on Dec. 8.
UAE sends 3,000 tonnes of aid on ship bound for Lebanon
DUBAI: The UAE on Friday dispatched a second aid ship carrying 3,000 tonnes of relief materials to Lebanon.
The ship departed Port of Jebel Ali, bound for the Port of Beirut, as part of the “UAE Stands with Lebanon” initiative which started in October.
It carries a wide range of essential aid supplies, such as food, winter clothing and items specifically designed for children and women, state-run WAM reported.
The statement noted that this was the second UAE relief aid ship to carry various relief supplies from UAE donor agencies, humanitarian institutions to Lebanon, noting that the ship was expected to arrive by the end of this month.
The UAE has consistently reaffirmed its unwavering position towards the unity of Lebanon and its national sovereignty since the Israeli escalation in southern Lebanon.
In October, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed directed the delivery of an urgent $100 million relief package to help the people of Lebanon.
