Umm Hadi has been living a repeated nightmare for three weeks. 12 years ago, Syrian soldiers detained his eldest son at a border crossing between Syria and Lebanon, and now it has happened again. On October 7, Syrian government forces arrested his youngest son, Hadi, at the al-Dabbousiya border crossing, while he was trying to return to Syria to join his family fleeing Israeli bombings in Lebanon.
Sitting in a refugee camp in northwestern Syria, an area controlled by the opposition to Bashar al Assad’s regime, Umm Hadi is distraught. “We are sitting here, waiting to find out their fate,” she says. Hadi sent his family back to Syria when Israeli bombs began to fall. He did not want to return because his people were in territory controlled by the Government and he was afraid. Until the Israeli bombings intensified two weeks ago and fear of the regime was replaced by the terror of never seeing their children again. He then decided that he too would make the return trip to Syria.
“He wasn’t involved in anything, he was just a worker trying to feed his family,” says the woman. “I am terrified of losing him, like his brother, at the hands of the regime.”
Hadi and his family had been living in Lebanon for more than ten years, as had the 1.5 million Syrian refugees who sought refuge in the neighboring country after the conflict began in 2011. In October, Israeli bombings against Lebanon reversed the flow of refugees pushing some 460,000 people, mostly women and children, to return through the chaotic and crowded border crossings, according to UN data.
Bribes and arrests
Approximately 70% of those who have crossed the border between Lebanon and Syria are Syrian. They are joined by Lebanese civilians (almost all from Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley) who travel in search of safety to the neighboring country still plagued by economic crisis, divisions and violence.
For many Syrians returning home after years of exile, the journey back is dangerous. At border crossings and checkpoints in areas of the Al Assad regime, disappearances, interrogations, detentions, forced recruitment, bribery, beatings and harassment of returning refugees have been reported. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, there have been at least 23 documented cases of Syrian refugees being detained and imprisoned by government forces while trying to cross back into the country.
Thousands of returning Syrians who fear the regime too much or have nothing to return to in their cities, towns and villages of origin, have to make their way through government-controlled territory to try to reach areas still held by the regime. the opposition in the northwest of the country.
Asriya Awad is one of the Syrian women who achieved this. At 80 years old and after a ten-day trip that began in Lebanon, she and 11 members of her family managed to reach the opposition city of Idlib. “We had been living in Lebanon for ten years, but we had to leave because the missiles were falling on us,” explains Asriya. “We left without taking anything. The women and children of our family hunt for [la aldea siria de] Jusiyah and there I saw with my own eyes how the border security personnel assaulted the young men, making them get off the buses and detaining them.”
“They detained my daughter-in-law and her daughters, and we had to pay another $1,000 for their release; “Our town is under regime control and our house has been destroyed,” the woman adds. “On the way here, the soldiers took a young man from our village, so we had to flee to the fields of Idlib because it was not safe to return.”
After a dangerous and desperate journey from Lebanon, Farid Suleiman and his wife, Haifaa Salal, also managed to make their way through Syrian territory until they reached Idlib. “We have seven children and we did not want to return to Syria, but we had nowhere to go because the shelters in Lebanon did not accept us,” says Farid.
Having survived multiple bombings in Lebanon, Farid and Haifaa first tried to cross with their family at the Masnaa border crossing, but were beaten by guards when they failed to show the proper documents, destroyed during an Israeli attack.
Afterwards, they were forced to pay smugglers to cross the border, but the Israelis bombed the road as they tried to cross to the other side: “The glass flew towards my children and almost killed them.” When they finally managed to enter Syria, Farid explains, they took him off the bus at a checkpoint and arrested him. Haifaa Salal had to hand over his jewelry to the soldiers to free him.
“At all border crossings and checkpoints the situation is terrible due to intimidation and blackmail,” he says. “Nothing terrified me more than the fear of my husband’s arrest, but for women [que viajan solas] It is very complicated; “We saw how they forced three women to get off the buses and were taken away by soldiers who did not return.”
Return to a country in ruins
Despite having survived the bombs and checkpoints, the prospects for many of the refugees seeking shelter in Idlib are dire. According to the UN, at least 4.1 of the 5 million people living in northwestern Syria depend on humanitarian aid to meet their basic needs. In addition, 1.9 million people live in camps and temporary settlements.
“Unfortunately, the suffering of those fleeing the bombings and crossing into Syria does not end with crossing the border,” says Rula Amin, spokesperson for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).. “A new humanitarian emergency is occurring at the final destination, where the majority arrive with no or very limited resources,” he explains. “They are returning to a country ravaged by 12 years of conflict, with inflation, with destroyed infrastructure, destroyed houses and an economic crisis. There are more than 7.2 million Syrians displaced within the country.”
Farid doesn’t know where to go. “I am from a town in Maarat al Numan that is under the control of the Syrian regime and I cannot return because they are looking for me for compulsory military service,” he says. “We have no home, no shelter, no clothes, no food, what can we do now?”
Translation of Francisco de Zárate
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