Yusuf, a 25-year-old Syrian who fled his country 11 years ago, has tried at least eight times to reach Cyprus from Lebanon. On one occasion, the Cypriot authorities sent him back to Lebanon. In the last of his attempts, on August 17, the Lebanese military deported him to Syria, where he says armed groups asked him for $1,500 to help him cross the border again. A relative paid it for him. “I can’t go back home, stay in Lebanon, or go somewhere else,” he explains to the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW). “The Lebanese authorities also don’t let us work or if they do, they confiscate a lot of our money and deprive us of our rights. I haven’t seen my family since I arrived in Lebanon, but Syria is very dangerous, I know that if I go back they will arrest me,” he adds.
The young man is one of the 16 Syrians interviewed by this organization for prepare a report published this Wednesday in which they denounce that the Lebanese and Cypriot authorities are working together to prevent refugees from reaching Europe and even sending them back to Syria, ignoring the danger this poses to their lives.
HRW stresses that these summary expulsions violate Lebanon’s obligations as a party to the UN Convention against Torture and under the customary international law principle of non-refoulement not to return people to countries where they risk torture or persecution.
In the case of Cyprus, it is also bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits such collective expulsions. But HRW denounces that this country has rejected Syrian refugees since 2020 and, since the end of 2023, has asked the EU to declare parts of Syria safe for the return of refugees. In April, Cyprus announced that it had suspended asylum processes for all Syrians who were on its territory.
The NGO also denounces that the European Union is “helping to pay the bills” for Lebanon, by providing it with funds intended mainly to improve its capacity to curb irregular migration. In May, for example, the European Union was given a allocated a €1 billion aid package for the period 2024-2027, which included equipment and training for the “Lebanese Armed Forces and other security forces for border management and the fight against smuggling.”
“The EU cannot continue to choose to fund Lebanese security forces without ensuring or monitoring that human rights are respected and turning a blind eye to abuses,” HRW researcher Nadia Hardman told this newspaper. According to the expert, in preparing this report they have found “flagrant violations” of human rights, starting with preventing people from seeking protection elsewhere and returning them to the country from which they fled, where their lives are in danger. “The EU cannot place this responsibility on third countries and continue to fund them so that refugees stay and do not go to Europe,” Hardman insists.
The report argues for the need to end “all abusive and illegal measures that trap people in Lebanon” and the establishment of “direct and independent mechanisms to monitor compliance with human rights in these border control operations.” Because according to the NGO, this situation is a vicious circle: “an inhumane approach to migration containment only exacerbates human rights abuses that lead to an increase in irregular travel.”
Deported to Damascus
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that There are 780,000 registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon. HRW points out that since the war in Syria began in 2011, 1.5 million people have arrived in the neighbouring country. Lebanon is the country in the world with the highest number of refugees in relation to its population, which is around 5.3 million. Since 2019, the country has been hit by a severe economic crisis and, according to the UN, 80% of the Lebanese population now lives in poverty. In the case of Syrians, poverty is compounded by administrative obstacles, as only 20% of them have legal residence in Lebanon. HRW believes that the country must reform the rules so that Syrians can regularize their situation in the country.
All of this means that for many the option is to leave, and the nearest shores are those of Cyprus. According to UNHCR figures cited in this report, in 2021, this organization recorded 38 attempts to cross to Europe from Lebanon, involving some 1,570 people. In 2023, there were 65 attempts involving almost 4,000 people. These boats were mainly Syrians, but also some Palestinians and Lebanese.
The 16 Syrians interviewed by HRW attempted to leave Lebanon illegally between August 2021 and September 2023. The NGO verified photographs and videos sent directly by the refugees, and accessed aircraft and boat tracking data to corroborate the interviewees’ accounts.
Nawal fled Syria with her husband and seven children in 2013. In July 2023, overwhelmed by the difficulties, they boarded a clandestine boat bound for Cyprus, but were detained by Cyprus authorities and, after holding them for two days, expelled them to Lebanon, where the Lebanese army deported them to Syria. “Ten years after fleeing the war, Nawal and her family ended up in Damascus, but were lucky enough to be released days later and managed to pay traffickers to return to Lebanon in August 2023,” the report explains.
Rather die than return
Following receipt of HRW’s findings, Francisco Joaquín Gaztelu Mezquíriz, Director-General for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations at the European Commission, responded by admitting that they were “aware of reports of possible violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law by Lebanese security agents” and that they “regularly reminded their Lebanese counterparts of the importance of respecting the principle of non-refoulement, as well as procedural guarantees in refugee cases.”
Eight of those interviewed by HRW were on a boat carrying around 200 passengers that sank after setting sail from northern Lebanon on December 31, 2022. The rescue involved the Lebanese army and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
One of the passengers was Marwan, 43, born in the Syrian city of Aleppo. “They didn’t explain anything to us, they didn’t answer our questions. They forced me onto a Lebanese army boat, where there were people shouting that they would rather die than go back. We said that if they deported us to Syria we would jump off the boat, but they told us they wouldn’t deport us,” he recalls. But several of them, including Marwan, were sent back to their home country, wet and barefoot since their arrest, and the luckiest ones were able to pay mercena
ries to return to Lebanon.
Those interviewed by HRW say that Lebanese and Cypriot authorities use excessive force, beating, insulting and pinning them to the ground. Some also report that their identity documents and phones are confiscated and not returned to them.
Cypriot Interior Minister Konstantinos Ioannou responded to HRW’s questions by recalling that his country and Lebanon signed a mutual agreement “on the management of cases of third-country nationals trying to enter Cyprus illegally,” confirming that “there have been several cases where boats have been intercepted and sent back to Lebanon” and that the European institutions “have been informed of this practice.”
In response to HRW, Lebanese security forces argued that detainees are informed of their rights and that “there is no physical or verbal mistreatment against them” and that they have not received “any complaints” in this regard during the arrests they have made.
Lebanon’s General Directorate of Security, which controls the entry and residency status of foreigners, reported the detention or return of 821 Syrians on 15 boats attempting to leave the country between January 2022 and August 2024. The intelligence agency admitted that the last time it coordinated with Cyprus for a migration operation was on April 17, 2024, when it received back 224 passengers from three clandestine boats. A total of “65 people who were returned to Syria in coordination with the Lebanese army for having entered Lebanon illegally,” it explained.
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