Security

Syria still unsafe for refugees to return, UN warns

"One decade in, the parties to the conflict continue to perpetrate war crimes and crimes against humanity and infringing the basic human rights of Syrians"

Kurdistan 24 2021/09/15 10:32

Syrian refugees getting ready to cross into Syria from the eastern Lebanese border town of Arsal. June 28, 2018. (Photo: Bilal Hussein, AP)

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ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Syria is still too dangerous for refugees to return and resettle safely over a decade after the conflict there started, the UN International Commission of Inquiry on Syria warned in a new report on Tuesday.

“One decade in, the parties to the conflict continue to perpetrate war crimes and crimes against humanity and infringing the basic human rights of Syrians,” Paulo Pinheiro, the Chair of the Commission, told a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

“The war on Syrian civilians continues, and it is difficult for them to find security or safe haven in this war-torn country.”

Ongoing conflict and violence are not the only hazards Syrian refugees returning to their country face, explained Karen Koning AbuZayd, a senior UN official and Commissioner of the Inquiry.

“The overall situation in Syria looks increasingly bleak,” she said. “In addition to intensifying violence, the economy is plummeting, Mesopotamia’s famous riverbeds are at their driest in decades, and widespread community transmission of the COVID-19 seems unstoppable by a health care system decimated by the war and lacking oxygen and vaccines.”

“This is no time for anyone to think that Syria is a country fit for its refugees to return.”

The report documents events in Syria from July 2020 to June 30, 2021. During that period, there was fighting in the northeast and northwest as well as in the south.

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria was not the only organization to warn that Syria remains unsafe for refugees to return. In a report titled “You’re going to your death,” the rights monitor Amnesty International documented cases of torture against returning refugees carried out by Syrian intelligence officers.

The report openly criticized Denmark, Sweden, and Turkey for claiming they no longer need to host Syrian refugees on their territory since many parts of the country are now secure and safe.

During a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday also claimed that Syria is becoming a safe place for refugees to return.

“I saw with my own eyes, when I was visiting you at your invitation, how people are actively restoring their homes, actively working to return in the full sense of the word to a peaceful life,” he told Assad.