Syrian government not a threat, refugees told

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Syrian refugees have been urged to return home without any fear of persecution as their government was willing to accept them.

Russia's Syria envoy Alexander Lavrentyev said Syrian refugees faced no threat from President Bashar al-Assad’s government or the Syrian security apparatus.

This despite the United Nations saying that conditions for returns to Syria are not yet fulfilled, more than seven years into a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since spiraling out of an uprising against Assad’s rule.

Russia, whose military has helped Assad defeat insurgents across much of Syria, last week declared it had set up a refugee center in Syria to help refugees return.

Lavrentyev, who met Assad in Damascus on Wednesday, said people were returning to Syria every day.

“People understand that there is no threat from the government and from the governmental security apparatus and they are returning to their homes, to their territories which are now under the control of the government,” he said on a visit to Lebanon.

Some 5.6 million Syrians are registered as refugees in the region, around 1 million of them in Lebanon, where Lavrentyev met Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday.

A woman outside a tent at a Syrian Refugee Camp. July 26, 2018. /VCG Photo

While some refugees are trickling back, many Syrians who fled the country fear persecution by the Assad government. But Lavrentyev said the Syrian government was “really willing to accept all those who want to come back to their homes".

"People are returning. It is a good sign, and it is a good signal for all those refugees who are still in Lebanon, in Jordan, in Turkey, that it is time to think it over, and to decide to return to their home,” he said.

Lavrentyev also said the Syrian government was not able to provide much financial help to returnees and urged foreign donors to provide assistance, saying the issue should not be politicized.

Syrian boys at Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, July 26, 2018. /VCG Photo

A Russian official said last week that preliminary assessments indicated 890,000 refugees could return to Syria from Lebanon in the near future, 300,000 from Turkey and 200,000 from European Union countries

Aoun told Lavrentyev that Lebanon welcomed the Russian initiative, a Lebanese presidential statement said. Aoun expressed “Lebanon’s readiness to offer the necessary assistance to implement the Russian proposals”, the statement said.

Aoun has described the refugees as an existential threat to Lebanon, and has been calling for their voluntary return to secure areas of Syria before a political settlement to the war.

Lebanon’s General Security directorate has worked with Damascus to coordinate the return of hundreds of refugees in recent weeks. The names of those wishing to leave Lebanon must be approved by Damascus before they can go back.

In April, a Syria conference hosted by the European Union and co-chaired by the United Nations in April said conditions for returns were not yet fulfilled, and that present conditions were not conducive for voluntary repatriation in safety and dignity.

Assad has recovered control of most of Syria in the last few years. Much of the north and a large part of the east remains outside his control, however. The Syrian war is estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Western states have said they will not help rebuild Syria until a negotiated political transition is under way.

July 25, 2018. /VCG Photo

Source(s): Reuters