What shapes the Middle East’s migration patterns

Children ride atop a water truck that is also loaded with furniture in the countryside of the village of Saharah in Syria's northern Aleppo province on Feb, 15, 2020. (Photo by Ibrahim Yasouf / AFP)
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Updated 20 February 2020
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What shapes the Middle East’s migration patterns

  • An estimated 29 million people have migrated from Arab countries since 1990, according to UN data
  • Political crises and civil conflicts have blurred the lines between voluntary and forced migration

ABU DHABI: Less than two months since an unhappy year for the Arab region’s migrants and refugees came to an end, the omens of things to come are far from good.

According to the latest “Situation Report on Migration in the Arab Region,” prepared by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in collaboration with various UN agencies, displacement and migration are two prominent trends at the beginning of 2020. Particularly — and unsurprisingly — in countries with ongoing wars.

An overwhelming majority of Arab countries endorsed the Global Compact for Migration (GCM) at the UN General Assembly in December 2018, voting to adopt its principles in national legislatures.

Subsequently, the number of migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea was found to have plunged in 2018 to almost a tenth of what it was in 2015.

However, the reality of the region’s migrant and refugee situation belies the hopes raised by the adoption of the GCM.

In Libya, for example, there was a steep deterioration last year in the living conditions of migrants and refugees stranded in the unstable North African country.

FASTFACTS

29m - An estimated 29 million people have migrated from Arab countries since 1990.

1/2 - Almost half of the people who migrated stayed within the Arab region.

9.1m - Refugees who have sought protection in the Arab region include 3.7 million under the mandate of the UN Refugee Agency and 5.4 million registered with UNRWA.

14.5% - The number of migrant workers in 18 Arab countries stood at 23.8 million in 2017, representing 14.5 percent of all migrant workers globally.

The country’s protracted civil conflict has not only caused massive displacement within its borders, but also means it has become a dangerous place for economic migrants from sub-Saharan Africa wishing to travel to Europe.

World leaders have just pledged in Berlin not to interfere in Libya’s civil conflict and to uphold a UN arms embargo, but only time will tell if that promise will be honored.

In Syria, meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in Idlib — the last stronghold of opposition forces and a safe haven for millions of internally displaced persons (IDP) — remains shaky as Russian-backed regime forces press on, despite mounting civilian casualties.

In Yemen, a peace opportunity was missed in early 2019, and there has been no let-up since in the fighting between government forces and the Houthi militia, who control the capital Sanaa and the northern highlands.

The country currently hosts between 2 million and 3.5 million IDPs and another 1.28 million returnees, in addition to 279,000 migrants and refugees — almost exclusively from Somalia and Ethiopia — for whom the country is a short-term way station, not a final destination.

Lebanon is in the grip of a wide- ranging crisis, too. People at the bottom of the economic ladder, including 1.5 million Syrian refugees and almost 500,000 Palestinian refugees, supplement their meager incomes with handouts from aid agencies.

Even before the protests erupted in Lebanon in October last year, a UN vulnerability assessment report for refugees in the country, carried out in early 2019, made grim reading.




Illustration courtesy of International Organization for Migration (IOM)

It said about 73 percent of Syrian refugees in Lebanon were living below the poverty line — up from 69 percent the year before, and considerably higher than the estimated 28 percent of Lebanese in the same situation.

Of course, migration and displacement have long shaped the Arab region, with countries simultaneously acting as points of origin, transit and destination.

However, in recent years, the distinction between voluntary and forced migration has become blurred as political crises and civil conflicts — viewed as the chief causes of human displacement — have proliferated.

“The challenge today is to put in place policies that will ensure successful and true integration while benefiting both the countries of residence and origin,” Laura Petrache, a senior adviser at Migrant Integration Lab, told Arab News.

According to UN reports, the number of migrants and refugees originating from the Arab region reached 29 million in 2017. Almost half of them remained in the region. Overall, the number of migrants and refugees as a proportion of the total population of the Arab region has risen steadily over the past three decades.

In 2018, around 80 percent of the region’s refugees originated in the Levant, mostly on account of the Syrian conflict.




The number of migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea was found to have plunged in 2018 to almost a tenth of what it was in 2015. (AFP)

 

Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Sudan are among the top 10 Arab destinations for migrants and IDPs owing to conflicts in the neighborhood. Apart from Lebanon, all of those countries have witnessed an increase in the number of refugees and migrants within their borders since 2015.

After Turkey, Jordan was the second-most-popular destination country for refugees and migrants from the region, with Lebanon,  Saudi Arabia and the UAE also reporting significant numbers. Iraq was the only country that saw its national refugee and migrant population decrease.

What the latest reports confirm is that migration in the Arab world not only has multiple drivers — socio-economic pressures, political instability and environmental degradation — but also complex patterns and trends.

Take the Gulf and the Levant regions. They attract different kinds of migrants because their levels of stability, security and development are not comparable.

While Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen are plagued by conflict, violence, corruption and divisions in both society and polity, GCC member countries are leading the way in groundbreaking ideas and investments, building cities of the future and attracting talent from across the world.




Illustrations courtesy of International Organization for Migration (IOM)
 

The migrant population in the GCC countries swelled from 8.2 million in 1990 to 28.1 million in 2017 — a substantial rise compared with figures for other parts of the Arab region.

Around 27 percent of global remittance outflows in 2017 reportedly came from the Arab region, estimated at $120.6 billion, and almost all of that (98.9 percent or $119.3 billion) came from GCC countries. According to the IOM’s report, the top remittance-sending countries were the UAE (at $44.3 billion) and Saudi Arabia (at $36.1 billion).

Under the circumstances, it is difficult to see meaningful, positive change for migrants happening any time soon in the Arab region, with the possible exception of the GCC.

“Migration policy making should move away from assimilationist frameworks,” Petrache, of the Migrant Integration Lab, told Arab News. “Instead, the policy emphasis should be on working with countries of origin to achieve sustainable integration — and re-integration in the case of return immigration.

“The policies should take into consideration the potential for win-win solutions using and developing the capability of the migrants to make a positive contribution to local host communities,” Petrache said.

 


‘No Eid’ for West Bank residents who lost sons in Israeli raids

Updated 5 sec ago
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‘No Eid’ for West Bank residents who lost sons in Israeli raids

  • An armored car arrived at the site shortly after, unloading soldiers to clear the cemetery of its mourners, who walked away solemnly without protest

JENIN: Abeer Ghazzawi had little time to visit her two sons’ graves for Eid Al-Adha before Israeli soldiers cleared the cemetery near the refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
The Israeli army has conducted a months-long operation in the camp, which has forced Ghazzawi, along with thousands of other residents, from
her home.
For Ghazzawi, the few precious minutes she spent at her sons’ graves still felt like a small victory.
“On the last Eid — Eid Al-Fitr, celebrating the end of Ramadan in March — they raided us. They even shot at us. But this Eid, there was no shooting, just that they kicked us out of the cemetery twice,” said the 48-year-old.
“We were able to visit our land, clean up around the graves, and pour rosewater and cologne on them,” she added.
As part of the Eid celebrations, families traditionally visit the graves of their loved ones.
In the Jenin camp cemetery, women and men had brought flowers for their deceased relatives, and many sat on the side of their loved ones’ graves as they remembered the dead, clearing away weeds and dust.
An armored car arrived at the site shortly after, unloading soldiers to clear the cemetery of its mourners, who walked away solemnly without protest.
Ghazzawi’s two sons, Mohammed and Basel, were killed in January 2024 in a Jenin hospital by undercover Israeli troops.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group claimed the two brothers as its fighters after their deaths.
Like Ghazzawi, many in Jenin mourned sons killed during one of the numerous Israeli operations that have targeted the city, a known bastion of Palestinian armed groups fighting Israel.
In the current months-long military operation in the north of the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, Israeli forces looking for militants have cleared three refugee camps and deployed tanks in Jenin.
Mohammed Abu Hjab, 51, went to the cemetery on the other side of the city to visit the grave of his son, killed in January by an Israeli strike that also killed five other people.
“There is no Eid. I lost my son — how can it be Eid for me?” he asked as he stood by the six small gravestones of the dead young men.

 

 

 


Israel’s Netanyahu announces four soldiers killed in Gaza

Updated 06 June 2025
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Israel’s Netanyahu announces four soldiers killed in Gaza

  • Netanyahu extended his condolences “to the families of our four fallen heroes in Gaza”
  • The military said the four were killed in southern Gaza

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Friday the deaths of four soldiers in Gaza, with local journalists who cover the military reporting they were all killed in a booby-trapped building.

Netanyahu extended his condolences “to the families of our four fallen heroes in Gaza in the fight to defeat Hamas and bring back our hostages,” naming two of the soldiers as Staff Sergeant Yoav Raver and reservist Sergeant Major Chen Gross.

“Our four fighters sacrificed their lives for the safety of all of us,” he added.

The names of the other two soldiers have not yet been cleared for publication, the military said.

Their deaths bring the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza to 429.

The military said the four were killed in southern Gaza, with Israeli media reporting they were in
a house in the city of Khan Yunis when it exploded.

The army said another reserve officer was severely wounded in the same incident.

Israel recently stepped up its campaign in Gaza in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack sparked the war.


Israel army issues evacuation warning for parts of Gaza City

Updated 06 June 2025
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Israel army issues evacuation warning for parts of Gaza City

  • The evacuation order comes at the beginning of the Eid Al-Adha holiday
  • Israel has faced mounting pressure to allow more aid into Gaza

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The Israeli military issued an evacuation order for residents of parts of Gaza City on Friday ahead of an attack, as it presses an intensified campaign in the battered Palestinian territory.

“This is a final and urgent warning ahead of an impending strike,” army spokesman Avichay Adraee said.

The army “will strike all areas from which rockets are launched.”

The evacuation order comes at the beginning of the Eid Al-Adha holiday, one of the main religious festivals of the Muslim calendar.

The Israeli military has recently stepped up its campaign in Gaza in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war.

International calls for a negotiated ceasefire have grown in recent weeks.

Hamas’s lead negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya said on Thursday that the Palestinian Islamist group was ready to enter a new round of talks aimed at sealing a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

Talks aimed at brokering a new ceasefire have failed to yield a breakthrough since the last brief truce fell apart in March with the resumption of Israeli operations in Gaza.

Israel and Hamas appeared close to an agreement late last month, but a deal proved elusive, with each side accusing the other of scuppering a US-backed proposal.

Israel has faced mounting pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, after it imposed a more than two-month blockade that led to widespread shortages of food and other essentials.

It recently eased the blockade and has worked with the newly formed, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to implement a new aid distribution mechanism via a handful of centers in south and central Gaza.

But since its inception, the GHF has been a magnet for criticism from the UN and other members of the aid world — which only intensified following a recent string of deadly incidents near its facilities.

Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, at least 4,402 people have been killed since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,677, mostly civilians.


Homes smashed, help slashed: no respite for returning Syrians

Updated 06 June 2025
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Homes smashed, help slashed: no respite for returning Syrians

  • The community center, funded by UNHCR, offers vital services that families cannot get elsewhere in a country scarred by war
  • “We have no stability. We are scared and we need support,” said Fatima Al-Abbiad, a mother of four

DAMASCUS: Around a dozen Syrian women sat in a circle at a UN-funded center in Damascus, happy to share stories about their daily struggles, but their bonding was overshadowed by fears that such meet-ups could soon end due to international aid cuts.

The community center, funded by the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR), offers vital services that families cannot get elsewhere in a country scarred by war, with an economy broken by decades of mismanagement and Western sanctions.

“We have no stability. We are scared and we need support,” said Fatima Al-Abbiad, a mother of four. “There are a lot of problems at home, a lot of tension, a lot of violence because of the lack of income.”

But the center’s future now hangs in the balance as the UNHCR has had to cut down its activities in Syria because of the international aid squeeze caused by US President Donald Trump’s decision to halt foreign aid.

The cuts will close nearly half of the UNHCR centers in Syria and the widespread services they provide — from educational support and medical equipment to mental health and counselling sessions — just as the population needs them the most. There are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees returning home after the fall of Bashar Assad last year.

UNHCR’s representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, said the situation was a “disaster” and that the agency would struggle to help returning refugees.

“I think that we have been forced — here I use very deliberately the word forced — to adopt plans which are more modest than we would have liked,” he told Context/Thomson Reuters Foundation in Damascus.

“It has taken us years to build that extraordinary network of support, and almost half of them are going to be closed exactly at the moment of opportunity for refugee and IDPs (internally displaced people) return.”

BIG LOSS
A UNHCR spokesperson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the agency would shut down around 42 percent of its 122 community centers in Syria in June, which will deprive some 500,000 people of assistance and reduce aid for another 600,000 that benefit from the remaining centers.

The UNHCR will also cut 30 percent of its staff in Syria, said the spokesperson, while the livelihood program that supports small businesses will shrink by 20 percent unless it finds new funding.

Around 100 people visit the center in Damascus each day, said Mirna Mimas, a supervisor with GOPA-DERD, the church charity that runs the center with UNHCR.

Already the center’s educational programs, which benefited 900 children last year, are at risk, said Mimas.

Nour Huda Madani, 41, said she had been “lucky” to receive support for her autistic child at the center.

“They taught me how to deal with him,” said the mother of five.

Another visitor, Odette Badawi, said the center was important for her well-being after she returned to Syria five years ago, having fled to Lebanon when war broke out in Syria in 2011.

“(The center) made me feel like I am part of society,” said the 68-year-old.

Mimas said if the center closed, the loss to the community would be enormous: “If we must tell people we are leaving, I will weep before they do,” she said

UNHCR HELP ‘SELECTIVE’
Aid funding for Syria had already been declining before Trump’s seismic cuts to the US Agency for International Development this year and cuts by other countries to international aid budgets.

But the new blows come at a particularly bad time.

Since former president Assad was ousted by Islamist rebels last December, around 507,000 Syrians have returned from neighboring countries and around 1.2 million people displaced inside the country went back home, according to UN estimates.

Llosa said, given the aid cuts, UNHCR would have only limited scope to support the return of some of the 6 million Syrians who fled the country since 2011.

“We will need to help only those that absolutely want to go home and simply do not have any means to do so,” Llosa said. “That means that we will need to be very selective as opposed to what we wanted, which was to be expansive.”

ESSENTIAL SUPPORT
Ayoub Merhi Hariri had been counting on support from the livelihood program to pay off the money he borrowed to set up a business after he moved back to Syria at the end of 2024.

After 12 years in Lebanon, he returned to Daraa in southwestern Syria to find his house destroyed — no doors, no windows, no running water, no electricity.

He moved in with relatives and registered for livelihood support at a UN-backed center in Daraa to help him start a spice manufacturing business to support his family and ill mother.

While his business was doing well, he said he would struggle to repay his creditors the 20 million Syrian pounds ($1,540) he owed them now that his livelihood support had been cut.

“Thank God (the business) was a success, and it is generating an income for us to live off,” he said.

“But I can’t pay back the debt,” he said, fearing the worst. “I’ll have to sell everything.”


Netanyahu admits Israel supporting anti-Hamas armed group in Gaza

Updated 06 June 2025
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Netanyahu admits Israel supporting anti-Hamas armed group in Gaza

  • Israeli and Palestinian media have reported that the group Israel has been working with is part of a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that Israel is supporting an armed group in Gaza that opposes the militant group Hamas, following comments by a former minister that Israel had transferred weapons to it.
Israeli and Palestinian media have reported that the group Israel has been working with is part of a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab.
The European Council on Foreign Relations (EFCR) think tank describes Abu Shabab as the leader of a “criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks.”
Knesset member and ex-defense minister Avigdor Liberman had told the Kan public broadcaster that the government, at Netanyahu’s direction, was “giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons.”
“What did Liberman leak? That security sources activated a clan in Gaza that opposes Hamas? What is bad about that?” Netanyahu said in a video posted to social media on Thursday.
“It is only good, it is saving lives of Israeli soldiers.”
Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestinian affairs at the Moshe Dayan Center in Tel Aviv, told AFP that the Abu Shabab clan was part of a Bedouin tribe that spans across the border between Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.
Some of the tribe’s members, he said, were involved in “all kinds of criminal activities, drug smuggling, and things like that.”


Milshtein said that Abu Shabab had spent time in prison in Gaza and that his clan chiefs had recently denounced him as an Israeli “collaborator and a gangster.”
“It seems that actually the Shabak (Israeli security agency) or the (military) thought it was a wonderful idea to turn this militia, gang actually, into a proxy, to give them weapons and money and shelter” from army operations, Milshtein said.
He added that Hamas killed four members of the gang days ago.
The ECFR said Abu Shabab was “reported to have been previously jailed by Hamas for drug smuggling. His brother is said to have been killed by Hamas during a crackdown against the group’s attacks on UN aid convoys.”
Israel regularly accuses Hamas, with which it has been at war for nearly 20 months, of looting aid convoys in Gaza.
Hamas said the group had “chosen betrayal and theft as their path” and called on civilians to oppose them.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, said it had evidence of “clear coordination between these looting gangs, collaborators with the occupation (Israel), and the enemy army itself in the looting of aid and the fabrication of humanitarian crises that deepen the suffering of” Palestinians.
The Popular Forces, as Abu Shabab’s group calls itself, said on Facebook it had “never been, and will never be, a tool of the occupation.”
“Our weapons are simple, outdated, and came through the support of our own people,” it added.
Milshtein called Israel’s decision to arm a group such as Abu Shabab “a fantasy, not something that you can really describe as a strategy.”
“I really hope it will not end with catastrophe,” he said.